The 350 a week was a catastrophic and costly mistake

NIMAN

So apparently 200,000 people in Ireland are earning more on the 350 per week than they were at work.

Good luck trying to get those back to work.

collywobble7

ChelseaRentBoy wrote:

30 billion isnt that bad tbh. Was worried it would be a lot higher.

Oh dear God. That's enough boards for today

Akrasia

NIMAN wrote: »

So apparently 200,000 people in Ireland are earning more on the 350 per week than they were at work.

Good luck trying to get those back to work.

the 350 payment is temporary

NIMAN

Akrasia wrote: »

the 350 payment is temporary

Yeah it is but its only temporary until Dr Tony can tell the 200,000 they can work again.

Where was the sense paying people more than they were earning in their job to do nothing?

Imagine the uproar if those people had to open a claim in their local Intreo office? Hundreds of people at one time queuing up outside an office that is working with a greatly reduced staff. Then wait weeks on end for a decision on their claim. With no money for the basics.

thegetawaycar

krissovo wrote: »

Irish begrudgery in its finest form here. I would rather pay someone a few bob more than were on before than pay them little to nothing so they have to beg or resort to crime like we see in Italy.

I would hope the majority would use the extra money wisely to improve their situation in some way, who knows it could changes some people's lives for the better. A few extra weeks is no harm with a staged drop to normal benefit levels, what is a extra billion or two in the grand scheme of things.

I think that's ridiculous, it's not begrudgery to expect that the Government do not make it less beneficial to work than to sit on your hole. We already have a very generous welfare system and part time workers should be only eligible for JSA from June on.

The COVID payment should be reduced from June on to a percentage of the money you were making before.

"I would hope" is not really very reassuring, my taxes are already crazy high, my fees for going to a hospital/doctor are already high, VAT here is very high, where are people expecting this money to be drawn back from?

The multinationals that are here are keeping a lot in work at the moment and enabling some form of economy to continue have seen a large down turn in sales and share prices, they aren't going to be taxed more, there's very little wiggle room to tax more, the usual "tax the rich" will come up so the ones that make large sums already are tax exiles and more follow them, the main other area not paying tax are at the bottom, do we tax the bottom earners more, reduce welfare etc...

For anyone looking to double claim or claim whilst earning, revenue are probably the best run public service, expect that once you get 2 payments it will be automatically drawn back. If that doesn't happen I'd be telling them immediately as if not revenue will see it at the end of the year and you will have a massive amount of over payment which will be deducted the following year.

For anyone wanting a short read: Keep the COVID payment for full time workers out of work due to the pandemic, cut it to the percentage of hours worked for part time workers/make them only JSA eligible.

Pauliedragon

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Imagine the uproar if those people had to open a claim in their local Intreo office? Hundreds of people at one time queuing up outside an office that is working with a greatly reduced staff. Then wait weeks on end for a decision on their claim. With no money for the basics.

They could simply have gotten people to attach a couple of recent payslips to the form.

Fred Cryton

Pauliedragon wrote: »

They could simply have gotten people to attach a couple of recent payslips to the form.

Exactly. Could not have been easier.

malinheader

Fred Cryton wrote: »

Exactly. Could not have been easier.

Yes. Your pps number should of told them everything they needed to know about the vast majority of people's claims

splinter65

Akrasia wrote: »

the 350 payment is temporary

It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat this it just won’t go in.

krissovo

Idbatterim wrote: »

Because the young people getting about half this amount, were going to go on a crime spree if getting the same amount for doing nothing ?

Some of the young folk I know who worked in our local cafe have bought laptops for their tuition from the money. I am happy with that, its an expense they dont have to worry when they return to college. I am 100% confident that most of these young people who have been shafted the last few years will pay it back by being decent tax payers.

paw patrol

slightly off topic but relevant to the state coffers and covid19

Was just thinking due to the collapse of volume on public transport and the mass refunds of annual tickets etc..

what is the the bill for that going to be? a whopper bailout for public transport next budget?
Surely that isn't the only industry needing a bailout.

as a nation our finances are fcuked. worse than 2008 - aren't they?:mad:

splinter65

Fred Cryton wrote: »

Exactly. Could not have been easier.

No payslips are needed. SW can see now on Revenue how much anyone in Ireland earned on their last payday. What you are quite clearly not understanding is
1. The sheer volume of people who applied
2. how urgently they required a payment
3. The length of time cross checking like that takes
4. The lack of SW staff available to process these claims.

mariaalice

What is the problem with reducing the payment to the average wage the person has prior to COVID 19? until they returned to work.

splinter65

mariaalice wrote: »

What is the problem with reducing the payment to the average weakly wage the person has prior to COVID 19? until they returned to work.

Who is going to process all those cases Maria?

GocRh

malinheader wrote: »

Yes. Your pps number should of told them everything they needed to know about the vast majority of people's claims

Revenue process covid payments and collect PAYE taxes.
PAYE reporting is now fully online and in real time with the rollout of PAYE modernisation in January.

Revenue literally have all the information they need.

SmokyMo

Funny how people here are mad recipients and not the politicians who created the framework to operate in.

Also I find it pretty hard to understand why would anyone be angry at people getting a merely 100e extra than they should. It is literally peanuts in today's world.

mariaalice

splinter65 wrote: »

Who is going to process all those cases Maria?

Loads of unemployed hospitality staff who are laid off who will be given temporary contracts might work.

splinter65

splinter65 wrote: »

No payslips are needed. SW can see now on Revenue how much anyone in Ireland earned on their last payday. What you are quite clearly not understanding is
1. The sheer volume of people who applied
2. how urgently they required a payment
3. The length of time cross checking like that takes
4. The lack of SW staff available to process these claims.

You can take a horse to water, Splinter, old chum, but you cannot make it drink. All these smart people who know everything, aren’t open to hearing the real facts.

Fred Cryton

NIMAN wrote: »

So apparently 200,000 people in Ireland are earning more on the 350 per week than they were at work.

Good luck trying to get those back to work.

It's even worse than that. There's another huge cohort who were earning around 350-400 per week pre-crisis. This represents people working on minimum wage for a standard 35-40 hour week. If you're offered 400 to do 40 hours of work or 350 to sit at home, it's a no-brainer to take the taxpayer cash.



The true figure is closer to 500,000 dis-incentivized to work.

ELM327

Idbatterim wrote: »

And fg warned about sf being a danger to the economy. Fg are morons, an outrageous marginal rate of tax, ridiculous higher vat rate. Welfare wonderland....

Better get used to it, and the alternative (lefty government) would increase all of this tbh.

mariaalice

If its too difficult and expensive to change it, maybe just leave people on it till the last restriction is lifted and then go back to normal might be easier in the long run.

mariaalice

mariaalice wrote: »

If its too difficult and expensive to change it, maybe just leave people on it till the last restriction is lifted and then go back to normal might be easier in the long run.

It’s up for review before the original end date of June 8th.

GocRh

gilberto_eire wrote: »

Some people haven't a clue.

If someone spent 15mins on an application theres only so many that could have been processed a week.

People would have been left without money for weeks and even months.

The only thing I'd have done differently is that any non EU applications should have been checked for a GNIB. They should have been pulled out of the pile and manually checked with whatever delays that entails.

The reason for this is that a large number of S.Americans/Asians come here on stamp two - work/study visas which dont entitle them to SW.
Lots who arrived in January ended up getting this after a few weeks of low paid work.

Theres 1000s of these who will leave Ireland having made more money than they put into the economy, their Visa should have disqualified them as it did for SW.

Wouldn't have taken much effort to filter Non EU applications out of the piles either.

Isn't one of the student visa conditions the ability to demonstrate enough savings to support yourself?
I seem to recall that a deposit in an irish bank account of a few thousand euros was required?
Some international students probably didn't even dip into their savings before claiming the dole.

Akrasia

thegetawaycar wrote: »

I think that's ridiculous, it's not begrudgery to expect that the Government do not make it less beneficial to work than to sit on your hole. We already have a very generous welfare system and part time workers should be only eligible for JSA from June on.

The COVID payment should be reduced from June on to a percentage of the money you were making before.

"I would hope" is not really very reassuring, my taxes are already crazy high, my fees for going to a hospital/doctor are already high, VAT here is very high, where are people expecting this money to be drawn back from?

The multinationals that are here are keeping a lot in work at the moment and enabling some form of economy to continue have seen a large down turn in sales and share prices, they aren't going to be taxed more, there's very little wiggle room to tax more, the usual "tax the rich" will come up so the ones that make large sums already are tax exiles and more follow them, the main other area not paying tax are at the bottom, do we tax the bottom earners more, reduce welfare etc...

For anyone looking to double claim or claim whilst earning, revenue are probably the best run public service, expect that once you get 2 payments it will be automatically drawn back. If that doesn't happen I'd be telling them immediately as if not revenue will see it at the end of the year and you will have a massive amount of over payment which will be deducted the following year.

For anyone wanting a short read: Keep the COVID payment for full time workers out of work due to the pandemic, cut it to the percentage of hours worked for part time workers/make them only JSA eligible.

You are being unnecessarily insulting to these people who did not ask to be out of work, they had jobs, they had to stay at home because the government told them to and their employers had to close their businesses for public health reasons

If they're 'sitting on their hole' not because they are lazy, but because they were told to stay at home to protect the lives of our elderly and high risk citizens

ronano

GocRh wrote: »

"Over 200,000 earning more on Covid-19 unemployment payment
Over a third of recipients were paid less than €300 a week before payment was introduced"

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/over-200-000-earning-more-on-covid-19-unemployment-payment-1.4258634

Just absurd. There's no incentive for over 200k people to go back to the job market, and those who were on job seekers allowance only get 203 EUR per week. Completely dysfunctional.
And it seems the government will extend covid payments into summer and leave the decision to the new government.
Those of us who do work will be fuc*** on the next budget.

The incentive will be the phasing out of the 350 payment i don't see how this is difficult to understand. It's a limited time payment, it was introduced at that amount and with less restrictions for payment level than jobseekers because we immediately needed to decrease people interacting and working but also not cripple the economy for when this temporary measure is over.

ChelseaRentBoy

krissovo wrote: »

Irish begrudgery in its finest form here. I would rather pay someone a few bob more than were on before than pay them little to nothing so they have to beg or resort to crime like we see in Italy.

I would hope the majority would use the extra money wisely to improve their situation in some way, who knows it could changes some people's lives for the better. A few extra weeks is no harm with a staged drop to normal benefit levels, what is a extra billion or two in the grand scheme of things.

If there is one thing the Irish excel at it's begrudgery. If people couldn't afford to feed their families and resorted to crime they'd have a go at the gubberment for that.

Not a FG supporter but some of the comments on here are pathetic about how they've handled this whole pandemic in general.

You'd swear the virus started in Varadkar's jocks and not in China ffs.

Fred Cryton

ronano wrote: »

The incentive will be the phasing out of the 350 payment i don't see how this is difficult to understand. It's a limited time payment, it was introduced at that amount and with less restrictions for payment level than jobseekers because we immediately needed to decrease people interacting and working but also not cripple the economy for when this temporary measure is over.

Except, here's the kicker. All the left parties in the Dail such as Labour, SF, SocDems etc are demanding the 350 be maintained. As FG is very much a minority government, they may need to give into those lefty parties to get anything passed.



Temporary my backside.

pc7

paw patrol wrote: »

as a nation our finances are fcuked. worse than 2008 - aren't they?:mad:

Also there is no other country people can leave and get work in, unlike in 2008.

Beechwoodspark

This payment is way too high. It’s lunacy at the moment.

I understand it was rushed in as an emergency measure and if I remember rightly opposition parties screamed for it to be increased to 350.

In hindsight this is too high. Needs to be brought down by at least 100 for the next 6 weeks then further reduced.