Social Welfare Benefits

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 28 June 2022

Tuesday, 28 June 2022

Ceisteanna (656)

Denis Naughten

Ceist:

656. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Social Protection the number of claims submitted and the number of persons who have received enhanced illness benefit for Covid-19; the number of persons who were in payment for two, four, six, eight and ten weeks, respectively; the number of persons who transferred over to illness benefit after the ten-week payment period had expired; the number of these claims that were in payment for more than two weeks; the number that was transferred over to disability allowance after the ten-week payment period had expired; the number of these claims that were in payment for more than two weeks; the number of such claims that were rejected or pending; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34470/22]

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Social Protection

Enhanced Illness Benefit (EIB) is a form of Illness Benefit that is payable to self-employed persons or an employee who is told to self-isolate or has been diagnosed with Covid-19. It is important to note that a person may have received Enhanced Illness Benefit on more than one occasion since the payment was introduced, and thus have more than one claim for Enhanced illness Benefit. The number of claims received and the individuals claiming EIB up to June 24th 2022 are provided in Table 1.

Table 1: Number of EIB Claims and EIB Recipients

Claims	Individual Recipients
643,315	478,485

EIB is payable for up to 10 weeks where a person is diagnosed with Covid-19. In a case where a person continues to be ill beyond 10 weeks, standard Illness Benefit may be paid for an extended period, based on the person’s continued eligibility. Details on the duration of EIB claims are set out in Table 2. The data in Table 2 refers to the claim duration, based on the certification dates.

Table 2: EIB claim durations

Weeks	Claims
0-2	533,513
2-4	78,571
4-6	15,317
6-8	5,941
8-10	3,067
10+	6,906

Of the 6,906 claims with a total certification period of 10 or more weeks, these relate to 5,291 individuals, of whom 3,783 transferred to Illness Benefit payments, and were certified for 2 or more weeks. 93 persons who had at least one EIB claim of more than 10 weeks duration are now in receipt of Disability Allowance. A total of 50 people had a Disability Allowance claim rejected, while 18 people had Disability Allowance claims pending as of mid-June 2022.