Pressure is growing on the Government to stop the practice of cutting the benefits paid to unemployed people if they try to leave the country.
The Irish Mirror yesterday revealed that up to half a million people who are out of work are effectively confined to the country.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) questioned the legality of checks being carried out at airports to identify travellers in receipt of Pandemic Unemployment Payment.
ICCL executive director, Liam Herrick, said the checks on passengers, to establish if they were in receipt of the PUP weekly payment of up to €350 may be discriminatory.
He said: “It’s just advice for one section of the population, but it actually has the force of law for another section - those that are dependent on social welfare payments. It has changed the definition of what is an allowable holiday.”
It has also emerged that the Department of Social Protection changed the criteria for the Pandemic Unemployment Payment to include jobseeking just hours after Tanaiste Leo Varadkar spoke about it on RTE’s The Week in Politics.
Sinn Féin social protection spokeswoman Claire Kerrane said the Government must explain why welfare guidelines appear to have been edited to reflect recent comments by the Tánaiste.
And Sinn Fein Leader Mary Lou McDonald described the stopping the PUP payment to workers who travel abroad as “outrageous”.
On Sunday the Department of Social Protection confirmed that 104 cases of Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) have been stopped, as a result of checks carried out at airports.
Fianna Fail TD Willie O’Dea also hit out at his own Government for “singling out” a section of people by stopping their PUP payment, following checks carried out at airports.
Mr O’Dea said he will call on the Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys and the Government to “withdraw this campaign”.
Speaking on Today with Sarah McInerney Mr O’Dea said: “It was not right and proper that one category of people who don’t take the Government’s advice should be singled out for punishment.
“Nobody should disobey the Government advice, but why should one category be penalised for it when others are getting away scot-free.”
“I don’t want to raise the temperature but getting into emotive language like nasty etc but it does seem like one section of the population, the lowest rung of the population... people that are forced to exist from week to week on social welfare. They are being singled out for punishment, nobody else is. I don’t think that’s right.”
Speaking on the same programme Sinn Fein’s employment and trade spokeswoman spokesperson Louise O’Reilly described Deputy O’Dea’s comments on this issue as “comedy gold”.
She said Deputy O’Dea was “coming on radio setting himself up in opposition his government is somewhat farcical.”
