207,200 NO END IN
Half a million people claim social support »»Restrictions on movement in place well beyond Easter »»Fears dramatic rise in cases will result in shortage of beds
MORE than half a million people are claiming social welfare support from the State coffers, figures showed yesterday.
The Central Statistics Office revealed the live register had soared from 24,400 in February to 207,200 in March – an increase of 182,800 people.
In the last week of March there were 283,037 people receiving Pandemic Unemployment Payment and 25,104 benefitting from the Temporary Covid-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme.
This shows there are more than 513,000 people receiving payments from the Government right now.
Social Minister Regina Doherty said it is important we don’t let a temporary health emergency become a permanent economic crisis.
She added: “This is perhaps the most unique Live Register data ever published by the CSO and reflects both the huge shock to the labour market arising from the public health measures to address the Covid pandemic and the statistical challenge faced by the CSO to accurately measure unemployment in these circumstances.
“When the last Live Register figures were published in February, we recorded a further fall in the numbers and we were still talking about being technically at full employment.
“The Covid emergency has completely up-ended that narrative.
“The crucial challenge for the Government is that we don’t let what is a temporary health emergency become a permanent economic crisis.
“The income supports we have introduced are crucial to alleviate the financial hardship so many now face and will also play an important role in sustaining incomes and positioning the economy for what we hope will be a fast recovery.”
Meanwhile, the pandemic is challenging the labour market as the number of positions has dropped drastically, experts said yesterday.
Job site Indeed added the outbreak has led to 32% less posts being advertised than last year’s average.
Spokesman Pawel Adrjan said: “The Irish job market is being radically transformed as people adapt to new realities in their lives.
“The impact of Covid-19 on the labour market is severe and is likely to get worse in future months.”
SIMON Coveney has admitted restrictions on people’s movements to continue the war on Covid-19 will go beyond Easter.
The Tanaiste insisted measures confining us to our homes until April 12 “may go on for some time”.
Speaking at Government Buildings in Dublin, he said: “The Government takes its advice from the Chief Medical Officer and his colleagues in the National Public Health Emergency Team.
“But I think people do need to realise these restrictions may go on for some time.
“I think it’s wrong to put a timeline on it. We’ve set an initial period but I think it may well be that we will need to go beyond that initial deadline.”
Mr Coveney added hospitals expect to see a dramatic increase in the number of Covid-19 patients and we don’t know yet whether there will be enough beds for everyone. He said: “What the HSE is doing is doubling bed capacity in the space of a couple of weeks to add, if we need it, an extra 10,000 beds to the system.
“They’re not all the equivalent of hospital beds but they are beds that can take huge pressure off the conventional hospital system to actually create space in our hospitals for patients if we see a dramatic increase in the number of people who need hospital care, as we expect we will. And we don’t know yet whether it’s going to be enough. But what we can say is, the more discipline the public shows in terms of complying with the restrictions and the guidelines we have asked them to comply with, then the higher the likelihood our health system is going to be able to deal with the peak of this crisis when it happens.”
However, the Tanaiste added it is important to “take positives while they’re there”.
Mr Coveney said: “We have certainly seen the spread of this virus
RICHARD Boyd Barrett is calling for the Dail to sit remotely using the virtual meeting app Zoom.
The People Before Profit TD believes it is crucial and more important than ever it continues during the coronavirus.
Zoom is the new video conferencing staying below what the expectation might have been a few days ago and certainly a few weeks ago.
“But I think we would be wrong to be complacent because we’ve seen in other countries how quickly the spread can actually accelerate.
“And so that is why our focus has been on as much testing as we can do, backed up by intensive contact tracing.”
Contact tracing is now taking place for people who have symptoms, even before their test results come back. Mr Coveney advised they
craze used by firms and governments all over the world during the crisis.
Mr Boyd Barrett is keen on the idea we could use it in Leinster House too.
He said: “We would be absolutely open to that. Indeed in the Dail’s business committee a few weeks ago we suggested we might do Zoom meetings. So I don’t see at all why the Dail couldn’t