Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 29 November 2018

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Social Protection
Chapter 11 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 12 - JobPath Employment Activation Service
Chapter 13 - Actuarial Review of Social Insurance Fund
Chapter 14 - Overpayments of Age-Related Jobseeker's Allowance
Chapter 20 - PRSI Contributions by the Self-Employed
2017 Social Insurance Fund

9:00 am

Mr. John McKeon:

Most of it - 75%, or approximately €345 million - relates to employers that we definitively know have been liquidated and have ceased trading. The prospect of getting any money back there are very slim, but we are pursuing it. Approximately €41 million is in respect of sole traders who do not have to go through a liquidation process but who do not appear to be trading either. We reckon that approximately 16% of the debt, or €72 million, is in respect of employers, at least some of which we know are trading. They are listed by the Companies Registration Office as trading. We work with those companies and try to agree repayment plans with them to get the money back.