This is going to be an unmitigated disaster.
Now I, for one, don't begrudge the money to reward those healthcare workers who did the heavy lifting. Clad head to toe in clumsy, uncomfortable PPE, exposed to then unknown levels of risk in those early, pre-vaxxine days, they were truly heroic. They worried about bringing the virus home and adopted elaborate personal hygiene and laundry routines to try and keep themselves and their families safe. Some even opted to isolate totally from family to reduce the risk to their own loved ones. For those, the payment is richly deserved.
Then there are others who will qualify based on fairly loose criteria. "Extra work" was mentioned. Hmmmm! Where will the line be drawn? Some blatantly gamed the system during the pandemic and will game it again now to get the tax-free grand. The shameless and the entitled will happily clamber onto the bandwagon. There will, inevitably, be inconsistencies and anomalies with some deserving cases excluded. These will have to be resolved. But as the circle ever widens, the anomalies and inconsistencies widen with it. The hard cases will go on Joe Duffy and their unions will ruthlessly use them as a battering ram to expand the scope of the payment. Their will be reviews, appeals and independent assessment systems to see who should get it. Eventually government will simply cave in and pay everyone.
And then the people who truly deserve it will be annoyed. And rightly so. The really ironic thing is that the government will get no credit from anyone for this. Those who get it and deserve it will be annoyed at the freeloaders. Those who don't get it will begrudge those who do and blame the government. Already SF and PBP are taking up the cudgels on their behalf. Paul Murphy said all workers should get it!
Bookmark this post and check out my prediction in a year's time. Disaster looms!