Peadar Tóibín
Question:12. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Finance the total value of wage subsidies provided in 2020 and 2021. [6406/22]
View answerTuesday, 22 February 2022
Questions (12)
Oral answers (25 contributions)
The Government imposed the longest and most severe Covid restrictions in the EU. It shut schools, businesses, building sites, healthcare facilities and society for longer than any other country in the EU. In many ways, the scars of the shutdown are only becoming apparent. My question is to find out the total value of the wage subsidies provided between 2020 and 2021.
The total cost of the temporary wage subsidy scheme, TWSS, and employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, was €10.26 billion. The schemes have played a role in protecting the jobs of up to 690,000 people in our country.
I agree that the funds provided by the Government have been absolutely necessary. There is no question about that. If a government is going to shut down a business and prevent its owner from making a living, it has to provide an income to that owner so he or she can live. If a government is going to tell workers they are not allowed to work, it has a responsibility to provide them with an income to pay for the costs arising for their families. The Government had many choices to make but took an outlier position, a position that no other country in Europe decided to take. That aspect of expenditure alone necessitated €10 billion. It is estimated that the total Exchequer expenditure was €40 billion. That is the second-largest investment by a state on a crisis since the banking crisis. My concern is that there is so little investigation and analysis of the decisions made by the Government in the period in question.
The Deputy is the person who opposed the use of vaccination certificates for the reopening of the hospitality sector. I say to him time and again that he was against the closure of our economy and country but that when we tried to reopen them safely, he was against that as well. He was against both. I accept that the lockdown lasted many months. The Government accepted the impact it had on the economic and mental health of those with a job and those who create jobs in our country. I would have thought it appropriate for the Deputy, in his evaluation of how we performed, to have noted that the measures we had in place played a significant role in minimising the loss of life and the number of people who contracted the awful disease. While it was the case that we had measures in place that required businesses to close for longer than was the case elsewhere, it was also the case that the measures we put in place prevented the deaths of even more of our citizens. The Deputy was against the closing down of our economy and our efforts to reopen it safely.
I welcome the support the Government provided to businesses and their employees throughout the pandemic. It was money incredibly well spent when it was needed to keep businesses afloat. Could the Minister outline to the House the scale of his engagement with businesses and their response to the EWSS? He certainly responded to calls from Deputies like me to extend the scheme, which businesses called for. They called for certainty, which the Government was able to provide to them by indicating it would extend the scheme, as it did, and wind it down gently. Many sectors and businesses in my constituency were utterly dependent on the EWSS. As for the contribution to the deficit generally, is it not the case that VAT and the corporation tax yield have been higher than expected and that we are on a trajectory to manage much more effectively in this regard than was thought at the outset of all the difficulties?
We sought the use of antigen testing when the Government pooh-poohed it and refused to use it. We, like many other countries, knew antigen testing was a better way of stopping Covid from entering the hospitality sector and that the sector could be kept open through its use. We sought air filters in schools and extra hospital capacity so people's lives would be protected without having to shut down to the extent we did. We sought the proper management of nursing homes and hospitals. The majority of people who died actually caught Covid in those two locations, under the management of the Government.
The party that sells itself as the party of fiscal responsibility is now the party that has created a national debt of a quarter of a trillion euro. The Minister will have as his legacy a national debt of a quarter of a trillion euro. That is an eye-watering figure. It steals from future generations. It prevents hospitals from being built, it prevents doctors and nurses from being employed, it prevents schools from being built and it prevents society, in the future, from functioning as it should. The Minister's choices have robbed from future generations.
Deputy Tóibín is the second Deputy who has attempted to write my legacy today. I do not know what has provoked that.
A quarter of a trillion euro.
Deputy Tóibín is the Deputy who voted against the legislation to safely reopen our country and our economy. He voted against it.
That is utter rubbish.
He consistently voted against it. I remember the debates in here vividly. The Deputy came here, voted and argued against-----
-----the use of certificates that allowed the hospitality sector to reopen. If the Deputy wants to have a debate about my legacy, I ask him to look at what is happening now with the number of employers that are opening up again. I ask him to consider how quickly the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, fell and the way in which the viability of employers was affected during a moment of the greatest challenge for our country. Indeed, I published a debt report today, which also states that our level of higher debt has now stabilised. There is a possibility that next year-----
It has stabilised at a quarter of a trillion euro.
-----our debt, as a percentage of national income, will be back to what it was before the pandemic.
I thank Deputy Carroll MacNeill for raising the issue of engagement. There is constant engagement with businesses, big and small, across our country, not to mention with Deputies, such as Deputy Carroll MacNeill, in this House.
A quarter of a trillion euro has a phenomenally significant impact within society. That money is owed as a State, in large part because of the decisions that have been made. On another related issue, what efforts is the Government making to recoup wage subsidies and supports that were paid to firms that made profits and paid dividends in this period of time? Again, all of this money comes out of society's ability to deal with the major projects and challenges that we have in the future, including to pay for housing, healthcare and education. What are the Minister's plans in that regard?
I am deeply aware of my responsibility for the additional €32 billion of national debt and understand the impact it could have in the future. I am not sure what element of that Deputy Tóibín was against. Was he against the employment wage subsidy scheme?
Was he against the pandemic unemployment payment? Was he against the additional money we put into our health services when the pandemic hit?
The Minister knows that is not the case. I have already said that.
What element of it was the Deputy against? What element would he have done differently?
The outlier restrictions.
As for the closure of our economy, I fully accept that it-----
The outlier restrictions
-----had an effect on so many. Yes, the level of closure that we had was higher than many but so was the number of deaths that we were successful in preventing within our country. I refer to the loss of life and the number of people we were able to help not get this disease. Those who had the disease in our country also fared fairly well. However, as I said, I know there are thousands of people in our country who do not have a loved one here with them today. I am very aware of them when we have debates like this.