Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 29 July 2020
218. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the reason social welfare offices cannot deal with payment anomalies that have arisen regarding the emergency Covid-19 pandemic unemployment payment until 10 August 2020 when the payment officially ceases; and her plans to extend the payment beyond 10 August. [19270/20]
View answerThe emergency Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment has been introduced as a time-limited emergency measure so that payments can be made as quickly as possible to the large number of people who have become fully unemployed due to the pandemic.
During the month of March, my Department received and processed jobseeker claims equivalent in number to a three year claim-load. These applications were processed as quickly as possible, with almost 59,000 people paid in the first week of the scheme, 283,000 people paid in the following week, and over 507,000 people in the third week of the scheme.
Currently, the Department is focused on processing and managing payments to ensure that they continue to be made to all who qualify for them. The work involved in doing this is complex, with people joining and leaving the scheme each week, along with management of overlaps between the Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment and the Revenue Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme. To date, over 8.7 million payment items have issued.
The Department is aware that many people are due some arrears and that each person’s case is unique. The Department is currently developing an automated process which will examine each case and match a person’s eligibility for each week of the scheme against their payment history. This is a complex piece of work.
It will take time to complete the necessary development work to enable the review cases and determine what, if any, arrears are due. I can assure the Deputies that all cases will be examined and where arrears arise they will be processed and claimants will be notified.
I hope that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.
