Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Carthy, my constituency colleague, for raising this issue. The pandemic unemployment payment has been a vital support for hundreds of thousands of workers and their families throughout Covid-19. Since March, my Department has issued over 12 million payments to over 800,000 people. A total of €4 billion has been paid out under the scheme to date.

I wish to acknowledge the staff in the Department of Social Protection for the extraordinary work they have put in since March to ensure that payments have been issued quickly to those who need them. This demonstrates what public service is all about. I wish to assure the Deputy that the matter he has raised today does not relate to errors in the records of my Department.

The Department uses earnings data supplied by the Revenue Commissioners for 2019 and 2020 in the case of employees and for 2018 and 2019 in the case of self-employed people for the pandemic unemployment payment. Where difficulties in verifying records have arisen in a small number of cases, it is typically due to outstanding or late returns or delays or non-compliance in the recording or reporting of income and earnings to Revenue.

The Deputy will appreciate that if a person is working or self-employed, that person is liable to pay PRSI. It is reasonable, therefore, to expect that a person claiming the pandemic unemployment payment would have a recent and verifiable record of PRSI. Where a person has applied for the PUP and my Department cannot find any record of PRSI contributions or earnings, the Department contacts the person concerned and asks the person to submit evidence of employment, for example, a payslip. Where the person provides evidence, the claim is put into payment as quickly as possible, generally within a week of receiving the information. Dedicated teams are in place in my Department to follow up on all replies as quickly as possible. I am glad that many of the instances Deputy Carthy raised were subsequently resolved.

The staff of my Department are working morning, noon and night to process payments efficiently and quickly. Since the start of October alone, they have processed and paid over 200,000 new PUP claimants. I wish to put that in context. This is the equivalent to a full year claim load in a normal year.

It is always the case when processing such a large volume of claims that there will inevitably be some cases not paid as quickly as others due to incomplete or missing information or simply because a person does not satisfy the eligibility criteria. As I have said, where that happens my Department contacts the individuals concerned. When the necessary information is submitted, the applicant is put into payment as soon as possible.

I am pleased to say my Department has been working very hard on getting the arrears issue resolved. We hope to have the arrears paid prior to Christmas.

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