The Government needs to scrap its plan for frontline pandemic bonus payments and a new bank holiday because it will burden future generations with increased debt, CEO of the Irish Small and Medium Business Association Neil McDonnell has said.
The call came as a prominent Limerick-based economics professor labelled pandemic bonuses as a "bad idea" and "a poor use of taxpayers funds".
Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, Stephen Kinsella, associate Professor of Economics at the University of Limerick, said: "If you think about the grand challenges that we have to solve - decarbonisation, climate change, homelessness - none of these are going to be addressed by giving people a voucher. "Think about what the State could do with €1 billion." Minis