Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 18 January 2024
Public Accounts Committee
Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 37 - Social Protection
Social Insurance Fund 2022
Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2022
Chapter 13 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 14 - Ex gratia Payments of €1.4 million to Social Welfare Branch Managers
Chapter 15 - Raising Social Welfare Overpayments
Chapter 16 - Recovery of Welfare Overpayments
Chapter 17 - Actuarial Review of the Social Insurance Fund
9:30 am
Mr. John McKeon:
There is a quirk in the figures that the Deputy should be aware of. Speaking in general, self-employed social insurance contributions are at least one year behind. The reason is that people have until November the year after their tax year to file their self-employed returns. The Deputy is looking at self-employed returns for the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, where taxi drivers and others were just not working. That is the quirk. That will ease out and you will see the numbers come back up.