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Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said it is “heartbreaking” that 60,000 people have had to qualify for Pandemic Unemployment Pay (PUP) following the introduction of new restrictions across the country.
The entire country joined Dublin and Donegal earlier this week at level 3 of the government’s Living with Covid-19 plan, and as a result the hospitality sector has largely had to shut down once again.
As the Irish Examiner reports, Mr Varadkar was speaking about the Newstalk issue with Bobby Kerr, where he said the government does not make the decision to increase restrictions lightly.
“In the last week alone, 60,000 people returned to receive unemployment benefit, laid off for the second time in a year.
“No government wants to make those kinds of decisions and we don’t take them lightly.
“We certainly will not go to level 4 or level 5 unless we believe it is necessary.”
Varadkar said there will be a time in the future when a decision will have to be made about which businesses are viable and which are not.
“I still hope and believe that with the development of a vaccine, with improvements in particularly rapid tests and trials and improvements in treatments and prophylaxis, we will get to a point, hopefully, by the middle of next year, where life will return to life. be something resembling what it used to be and that those businesses have a chance to survive, “he said.
In response to complaints this week about traffic delays due to the introduction of Garda checkpoints, Varadkar said:
“The level of traffic that we see on our roads is indicative of the fact that many people are not following the restrictions.”
Speaking about next week’s budget, Varadkar said the government will not be in a position to compensate companies for all the money they have lost due to the pandemic, but will try to do enough so that the vast majority can survive through the winter.
The government is considering lowering the VAT rate for the hotel industry before the 2021 budget.
The struggling sector has called for it to be cut from 13% to 9% to help businesses during the pandemic. Varadkar said it is among the proposals that are being analyzed.
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