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

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, was introduced on 13 March 2020 in response to the Covid-19 crisis. Since its introduction, in excess of 23 million payments have been made, with 14.7 million payments made in 2020 and 8.4 million payments in the first four months of 2021. Last week, my Department issued payments to more than 376,000 people on the pandemic unemployment payment. This represents a decrease of 8,500 on the previous week.

The first payments on PUP were made in March 2020, with more than 58,700 payments in the first week. The number of payments peaked at in excess of 600,000 in early May 2020. Following the gradual reopening of the economy over last summer, number dropped to a low of over 200,000 by early October 2020.

Level 3 restrictions were imposed in Dublin, Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan from late September 2020 which saw recipient numbers gradually increase. This was followed by a move to level 5 restrictions from late October and recipient numbers increased again to a peak of more than 350,000 by late November. Easing of restrictions in early December saw the number of recipients fall to just over 280,000 by 25 December.

Level 5 restrictions, including restrictions on construction, were again reimposed from late December 2020 with recipients peaking at almost 481,000 in the week ending 5 February 2021. Since then, the numbers of recipients have fallen gradually each week and have reflected the gradual reopening of the economy during April and early May, to stand at just 376,000 by 14 May.

Expenditure on the pandemic unemployment payment since its introduction is more than €7.5 billion, of which €5 billion was in 2020 and €2.5 billion in 2021. The expenditure for each month since the introduction of PUP is as follows:

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