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The Social Protection Department will continue to support workers until they return to work, a government minister said.
However, the Minister of Employment and Social Protection Affairs, Regina Doherty, also warned that the current payments would not be sustainable in the long term.
Doherty expects all construction workers to exit the Covid-19 pandemic unemployment payment and return to work in the coming weeks, which would take 78,000 people off the live record, he said in an interview on Tomorrow, Ireland.
“We will continue to care for people long after this pandemic ends,” he said.
The vast majority of people will return to work by the end of the year, Doherty said, but acknowledged that there are some industries that will need a lot of help to recover and some people will have to retrain to work.
There are emerging sectors that will require workers that will offer an opportunity for workers to retrain, he said.
The government’s € 6.5 billion package to support businesses was an acknowledgment of the need for assistance, he said. Only part of the package will require legislation that would take weeks, which is why government formation negotiations were important.
The focus now is on rebuilding society, he added, and to do that there must be a stable government, having a government that only lasts a few months would not help.
When asked whether the government should have informed the Northern Ireland Assembly of its plans to facilitate the shutdown before announcing it to the public, Doherty said “perhaps, in retrospect.”
“The most important thing was to tell the people we serve,” he added.
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