The Government will press ahead with plans to cut the Pandemic Unemployment Payment from September, the Finance Minister has said.
The payments will begin to be wound down by €50 starting in September as the government aims to move PUP recipients back to the basic jobseekers rate – €203 for a single person. "The reason why we're committed to doing that is that we are actually going to be extending the pandemic unemployment payment out to the start of next year, we are going to be reducing it but we're going to be reducing it gradually in three different moves," Mr Donohoe told RTE's Morning Ireland.
He added: "It has now been in place for well over a year and as the health emergency begins to improve, we also will need to change the kind of emergency payments that we've had in place.