Notwithstanding the U-turn the Government was forced into on the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, and travel I do not think the Government really gets the anger that is being felt by the economic victims of the Covid-19 measures. I have been trying to explain to the Taoiseach and to other Government spokespeople for weeks now that there are particular cohorts of people who have been savaged, decimated and put on their knees because of the economic consequences of public health measures. These people are likely t…

Can we have a brief supplementary question?

I am asking the Taoiseach in advance of the Bill tonight, and I know it is late but-----

The Bill tonight. I ask that the Government amend it to make the income subsidies available to employers available to the self-employed in sectors such as the arts, music, live entertainment and taxi drivers. They are having their pandemic unemployment payments cut but, unlike other people, whom Government is trying to encourage to maintain their relationship with employment, there is no step-down subsidy for them. They want to work but no work is available for them or there is very little work.

I am just asking this because it is very important. Will the Taoiseach please give them an income subsidy scheme or a step-down scheme?

They are not getting it.

People Before Profit is one of a minority of political parties in the Dáil that have elected representatives in the North and the South. We have representatives in the Northern Ireland Assembly and in councils in the North. The reason is that we believe in ending partition and uniting this island, not because we are bleary eyed nationalists but because we are internationalists and oppose partition in the tradition of James Connolly. James Connolly understood how one developed a tradition of a shared island and why …

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. The wage subsidy scheme is a good scheme in principle, which tries to ensure that people who lost jobs and income as a result of the Covid-19 measures have a road back to employment, retain their relationship with their employment and have some sort of income support to sustain them through the very difficult period of the lockdown, when people, collectively and based on the principle that we are in it together, endured very significant hardship to protect our society from the v…

I would be-----

I would be glad if the Minister did respond to some of the points raised on Second Stage.

Can we speak on the section?

Can we turn on the microphones?

We can go section by section.

That is how it works.

I want to speak on the section.

I hope the Minister will respond on the section. Section 1 deals with definitions. The problem with one definition is that it refers to employers only in terms of the wage subsidy scheme, WSS. As I pointed out on Second Stage, many people need an income subsidy but they are not employers or they are their own employer, that is, they are self-employed or lone traders. This group, to put it bluntly, has been left hung out to dry in the July stimulus. They should get the benefit of an income subsidy. I would like the …

Deputy Doherty is giving way. First, I hope the Minister knows that I do not do personal and my comments were not in any way personalised. I know the Minister has good taste in music and that he understands the plight of musicians. The reason I used the word "betray", however, is because there are a number of groups who really bought in, as did the vast majority of society, to the notion of "We are all in it together". In doing that, they protected our society from Covid-19 overrunning our health services and saved…

I do not want to drag this out but what I would like, although it is not about what I would like because I am not in this position and none of us in this room is, but those 23,000 taxi drivers and their families, and at least 30,000 or 40,000 musicians, crew, theatre practitioners, artists and performers of various kinds want an answer before the summer recess. Mary Coughlan wants an answer as to whether she should take the gig in the Mermaid Arts Centre. Will the Minister answer the question? We have been looking …

Hear, hear.

I support this amendment. It is another way to try to address the deficiencies in the Bill and the need for sectoral-specific approaches for those sectors hit harder than others. We have gone through the debate, and I do want to extend it, but I have one additional appeal to make to the Minister. He asserts, and it is a fact, that we cannot further amend this Bill now. In addition to the suggestion that he should talk to the NTA about the taxi drivers and listen to the points made concerning the arts, music and ent…