Mr. Niall Cody:

The legislation for the temporary wage subsidy scheme provided that the amount of the subsidy had to be shown on the individual payslips of employees. The employment wage subsidy scheme is different. Employees are paid their wages and the employer gets a payment. It is a subsidy but it is not a subsidy that is directly passed on to the employee. The scheme provided that the TWSS payment had to be shown on the payslips of anyone receiving it. Through the course of the year, certain financial institutions had concerns and brought in blanket rules which called into question mortgage applications if a person's employer was in receipt of the subsidy. Representations were made to us about some of those cases. We identified that we have no role in what the mortgage company does. We passed on concerns in submissions made to us regarding banking oversight to the Department of Finance. Transparency about being in receipt of the scheme was key because we wanted to ensure that employees knew exactly how much the employer was getting. That became part of the reconciliation process and compliance programme we did to ensure that the subsidy in the TWSS was passed on to the employee.