Covid-19 Pandemic
Dail Éireann — 2020-07-28
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

The Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Varadkar, and the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, have been under the spotlight for the disgraceful move to cut pandemic unemployment payments, PUP, for people who engage in non-essential travel. The Minister himself has not been under much scrutiny but I put it to him that he is significantly responsible for this mess. The statutory instrument which the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, is using to cut people off the PUP refers to the travel advice on the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade which actually says that non-essential travel to a whole list of countries is okay. Did the Minister discuss the advice with NPHET and did they agree with it?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2020-07-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:29+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-07-28