Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 December 2020

Thursday, 3 December 2020

Ceisteanna (39, 42, 78)

Gary Gannon

Ceist:

39. Deputy Gary Gannon asked the Minister for Social Protection the number of pandemic unemployment payment recipients who are due arrears; and the date when payment on these arrears can be expected. [40158/20]

Matt Carthy

Ceist:

42. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Social Protection the number of pandemic unemployment payment recipients who are awaiting payments for arrears due; and when the arrears will be paid. [39984/20]

Thomas Gould

Ceist:

78. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to a continued backlog in back payments of the pandemic unemployment payment. [39726/20]

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Social Protection

I propose to take Questions Nos. 39, 42 and 78 together.

Since the introduction of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment scheme in March, approximately 815,000 people have applied for payment and in some cases, they have done so on a number of occasions as they moved in and out of employment or where their employer availed of the Revenue Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme. Consequently, there were over 1.4 million applications to be examined to determine if arrears are due. To date, over 13 million individual payments have issued over a 36 week period. I am pleased to advise the Deputies that over €129 million in arrears was paid out to 286,000 people on Tuesday 1st December. I hope that this clarifies matters for the Deputies.