Fianna Fail TD Paul McAuliffe has today welcomed the comments made by An Taoiseach Micheal Martin regarding the government’s plan to examine income supports for those who are self-employed in COVID impacted sectors.
Deputy McAuliffe said: “For some weeks now I have been raising the issue of self-employed workers like taxi drivers and arts workers who are self-employed and while the details of the Budget have not been finalised, I welcome the recent comments made by An Taoiseach that government is to examine ways to assist these workers in Budget 2021.”
“There is no doubt that taxi drivers and other self-employed workers are facing a very hard call in deciding whether to come off their payments to go back to work in an environment where their business would be down far more than the 30% which is used to support PAYE workers.
“The government rightly supported PAYE workers to the tune of €203 per week per employee in a business that have seen more than a 30% reduction in turnover. And that support will continue until next April.”
“However, a self-employed person receives no such support. They are asked to leave the Pandemic Unemployment Payment into a market that has often reduced by far more than 30%. We are treating two different workers differently. We are supporting PAYE employees significantly, but we are not doing the same for the self-employed. The budget is an opportunity to rectify that inequality and target our supports to sectors which have been decimated by restrictions,” concluded the Deputy.
