When the coronavirus struck, singer Mary Coughlan lost almost all her pre-booked gigs - including Glastonbury.
The €350 a week Covid-Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) was a lifesaver - but today, the Government has cut her benefit to €203.
She has been told that her self-employed income from 2018, when she earned very little as she was working on a play, indicated she was earning less than €200 a week. Because of that, she is now lost €147 per week in welfare - money she says she simply cannot afford as she is "penniless".
But Ms Coughlan is just one of over 110,000 PUP claimants in this position today.
Up to now, all claimants received €350 a week regardless of their earning before the pandemic - which meant some part time lower paid workers were better off on the Pandemic Payment.
Back in April, convenience stores reported that students who had been earning less than €100 a week for part time shifts had quit to go on the PUP - which was possible because unlike for Jobseekers' Benefit, PUP claimants did not have to prove they had been let go by their employer.
However, from today, all those earning below €200 per week gross before the pandemic struck will see their Pandemic Payment plummet from €350 per week to €203 - the equivalent of Jobseekers benefit.
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Those who were earning more than €200 prior to the virus will continue to receive the full Covid payment.
According to the Music and Entertainment Association of Ireland (MEAI), over 60% of its 3,400 members have suffered the welfare cut - and financial anxiety is high, given the lack of clarity about when performing arts will be back in action.
MEAI member Laura Walsh had music gigs four or five nights a week in Temple Bar, and depended on the PUP when all her events were cancelled.
Following the PUP cut, she now fears that she will have to move back in with her parents, but acknowledges she is lucky to have this option - and is also wondering whether she should retrain given the lack of certainty about the entertainment sector.
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This evening, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said he had received a number of reports of taxi drivers, arts and gig economy workers having their PUP reduced.
"Rather than cutting the income supports for taxi drivers, arts workers and others, the Government should maintain these payments as subsidies for those whose employment and income opportunities have been particularly devastated by Covid-19 through no fault of their own," he said.
The Government insists that despite today's cut, no affected claimant will be worse off than they were before the pandemic earning less than €200 a week.
However, the PUP is due to expire next month, and many claimants are anxious about what happens then.
At the peak of the crisis, almost 600,000 people were claiming the payment, and while that has dropped to 413,000 - and will fall further over the coming weeks as the economy reopens - there will be many whose employers may not survive, and who may face longer-term joblessness.
The Government is expected to indicate in the coming weeks how the PUP might be restructured - possibly in conjunction with the planned July Jobs Stimulus.
Certainty cannot come soon enough for those 413,000 still entirely dependent on the PUP for their income - and with no inkling of what the "new normal" will be.
