The Deputy made a very good point. I have been receiving literally a daily phone call from one of the ladies in Safe Ireland. I have no doubt that that will not change. If there are any tweaks that need to be made, we will definitely make them. I thank the Deputy for writing to me on the matter, as he has done on several occasions. Several other Members raised the issue of those returning from maternity leave and the wage subsidy scheme. I will address the matter even though it is not the responsibility of my Depar…

There absolutely is but the problem is that with this particular case - and one learns from every single scenario - it all happened very fast. We were not really given much notice. We had an idea of what was going on for the past number of years but obviously it was accentuated by the pandemic and decisions were made by the employer very quickly. The liquidator was appointed before we got to see that there had been no engagement for the 30 days. One can learn from every case and whoever takes over after me will, I …

I will answer the question on the Duffy Cahill report and write to the Deputy on the other issues. The Deputy is aware the Duffy Cahill report was sent to the Company Law Review Group in 2016 for its consideration, as that group was advising the Minister with responsibility for business. All of the responsibilities associated with this particular issue were then with that Department. They are in mine now. The Company Law Review Group is a statutory body comprising regulatory, legal, business and employee interests.…

I hate to do this to the Deputy but I do not have the answer to the question because I am not in that Department. What I do know is that it was not done intentionally. It is wrong, we need to fix it and we are going to fix it. I do not know how we are going to fix it. From the outside, we sometimes think these things are obvious and should be easy to fix but it turns out that they are not. Regardless of how it is to be done, the problem has to be fixed and it will be this week.

I do not think the two things are the same, even though they sound similar. When this House passed the legislation that suspended the right of an employee to apply for redundancy once they had been furloughed for longer than four weeks, we knew that it was not a real furlough. We knew everybody was going to be off work for longer than four weeks because we had closed down the country for the good of all of our public health. It was not that we were taking away the right; we were just suspending it. If people need t…

The first question the Deputy asked me was with regard to people passing away. I hope to God we are not; I do not know whether we are. From our perspective in my Department, we did a bit of research with the Central Bank a number of weeks ago which I published last Wednesday week. I will send a copy of it to the Deputy this afternoon. It looks at all of the people on the pandemic payment, the industries they have come from and the relative vulnerability of those industries that are due to go back in phases 2 to 5. …

There are two schemes specifically for artists. Thankfully this House introduced jobseeker's benefit for the self-employed only last November. It did not exist previously and it would have cut out a large cohort of people from the pandemic payment otherwise. There is a jobseeker's payment for artists that allows them to continue to try to ply their trade and make money from it without having to be fully available to be employed in another sector. The Minister, Deputy Madigan, and I are examining whether we can expa…

With the question on Debenhams, is the Deputy asking me to comment on the letters between me and Mandate, or was it something else?

I replied to Mandate this afternoon. I will get a copy of the letter for the Deputy.

I will send Deputies Bríd Smith and Barry copies of the letter I sent to Mandate in response this afternoon and I will answer Deputy Bríd Smith's questions on maternity leave and direct provision. I am aware that there is a request and a large Uplift petition but, unfortunately, the matter does not fall within the remit of my Department. It falls within that of the Department of Justice and Equality and so it has been referred to the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan.

Maternity leave is a policy issue for the Department of Justice and Equality. The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection just pays the benefit that is associated with the people who have the contributions towards it. If a decision is made by the former Department, then we will comply with it. I will pass on the request Deputy Bríd Smith has made of me to the Minister for Justice and Equality and I will ask him to get back to her. On the PUP for people who are here seeking asylum, anybody who does no…

I believe I mentioned earlier that, under the Social Welfare Consolidation Act, people who are entitled to receive employment or unemployment benefits are stipulated to be between the ages of 18 and 66, the pensionable age. On becoming 66, a person becomes pensionable and receives his or her payment. On the first question the Deputy asked me, if somebody is not in receipt of a pension, he or she should apply for one. There were cases of people in receipt of payments less than the full contributory pension who have …

I thank the Deputy for the good wishes and the compliments he gave me earlier. I am very glad I have no responsibility for the public health response or the contract tracing. The witnesses who were here yesterday are the people to whom the Deputy probably should have addressed those questions. Regarding the payments, there does not need to be an extension because the law allows people to self-isolate for two periods of two weeks, which is a total of four weeks. They do not need to apply for extensions; they just ne…

If those people are self-isolating and have certs from their GPs stating they are self-isolating because they are vulnerable, they can apply for the two two-week periods. However, somebody who is vulnerable obviously does not stop being vulnerable after the two weeks, so then such people are entitled to apply for the Covid PUP as long as they make a declaration that their income has fallen away. They can be maintained as employees, but as long as the company is no longer paying them they can apply for the Covid pay…

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae noted that other people have brought up the question of maternity leave extension. I have said it is not within my remit but I will certainly bring people's concerns to the Minister for Justice and Equality. There was mention of seasonal workers and those who are over the age of 66. With respect, the position with those over 66 arises because the current legislation in which the pandemic unemployment payment is enshrined relates to people within the social insurance system aged 18 to 66. If…

I beg the Deputy's pardon. The scheme was set up for income lost but not forgone income. It would be incredibly difficult to figure out who was or was not going to get a job. That is not to say the social welfare code does not look after those people. They are all entitled to apply for jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance.

I thank the Deputy for the good wishes. I will provide the numbers in writing because I do not have them with me. Anyone who did not have a PPS number was not entitled to the PUP. Someone needed to be working in-----

We have issued 5,000 plus PPS numbers to people, most of whom are foreign students or others from abroad whom we probably did not know about beforehand. In the absence of a PPS number, we have been giving people the supplementary welfare allowance, a weekly payment equivalent to what they require to meet their needs. The task force is working, but I am not aware of anyone who is not receiving a payment from us in some shape or form. That is, unless people have not presented themselves to us yet. If the Deputy knows…

Yes.

I will get that to the Deputy, if not today, then tomorrow.