Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am going to move on to overpayments and paper payslips.

In 2018 and 2019, approximately 45,000 people were in receipt of approximately €5 million in overpayments. What is the value of overpayments that has been written off by the Department? Why do these overpayments persist? Are controls in place to prevent such issues happening? What has the Department done to prevent a recurrence of this in 2020?

I am mindful that out of almost 4,500 cases, there is a recovery plan in place for only 742 of them. What does a typical recovery plan look like? What is the Department's estimate in percentage terms on how much it will be able to claw back?

The Department spent €13.8 million over a six-year period on postal and telecommunications services. This is quite a large sum. How much of this is postage for payslips? I have not received a payslip in the post for ten years because nobody does that anymore. Is the Department moving towards the use of electronic payslips? If so, when? I am not going to get into calculated grades, but in terms of engagement with IT systems, is that an issue for the Department?