Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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84. To ask the Minister for Health for an update on the roll-out of the pandemic recognition payment to front-line workers not directly employed by the HSE; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7762/23]

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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We are seeking an update on the roll-out of the pandemic recognition payment to front-line workers who are not directly employed by the HSE. Hardly a day goes by when I do not receive an email or phone call from an agency nurse or a contract security guard who may have worked throughout the pandemic in an acute hospital setting but has yet to receive the payment. I seek a status update on that process and why there are so many delays.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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To recognise their role during the pandemic, the Government announced that a recognition payment of €1,000 tax-free would be made to all eligible staff. I am very happy to inform the House that over 188,000 staff have been paid. This measure compares favourably internationally. For example, in Northern Ireland it is £500 versus €1,000 in the Republic.

In the public health service, roll-out is substantially complete, with over 88,500 HSE staff and over 52,500 section 38 staff having been paid. For eligible defence and Dublin Fire Brigade staff, funding was transferred to their employing bodies and I am advised that payment to these groups is substantially complete.

While commencing the roll-out beyond the public sector took some time, it was important to get it right. The HSE had a very legitimate concern that if double payments were made or if payments were made in circumstances where they should not have been made, we in the Oireachtas would have been asking it difficult questions about allocations of public money. The HSE was understandably cautious and that took additional time.

However, I directed the HSE to move to a self-assessment model rather than a much more comprehensive audit that it was planning on doing which really would have delayed these payments. While it would have been very thorough in allocating funding, it would have potentially delayed these payments for a very long time. Therefore, I directed it to move to a self-assessment process. We need to be honest in here at the Dáil that the self-assessment process may lead to some double payments but it is a trade-off between getting it 100% right and actually getting the money to the staff we are looking to get it to.

The roll-out is now progressing at pace. As of last Friday, 542 of the 694 claims received from eligible employers have now been paid. This means 78% of these organisations and over 45,000 staff have now paid. I am advised that the remaining payments will be made in the coming weeks.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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We have been told time and again that payments were imminent. This is beyond frustrating. For a contract security guard working in a hospital, for example, it could amount to almost two weeks' wages. We are only too well aware of the cost-of-living pressures being experienced, especially by those on low pay.

This has been a frustrating process from start to finish. It has been about two years since my colleague, Deputy Kelly, first called for a pandemic recognition payment to be paid to those who protected and helped us through this pandemic. These are the people we applauded in our homes during lockdown and the people who had no option other than to go to work during the height of the pandemic. They put themselves in harm's way and far too many people are still waiting for that modest €1,000 payment in recognition of the services and supports they provided to us all across this country. It is welcome that progress is being made but the Minister would agree that the process has been far from perfect and satisfactory. It was a year ago that the Minister announced that this payment would be made.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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It was a year ago and I was not satisfied with the pace of the process, which is why I intervened and for a move to a self-assessment model. However, while we all would have liked the payment to have gone out to everybody quicker than it did, I have no doubt that if the HSE had moved off its own bat, at a pace where there would have been significant errors made, there would have been double payments made. For example, let us say you had a clinician working in a HSE hospital and working in a nursing home as well, he or she is due to get the payment once. If double payments had been made or if payments had been made to people who were not eligible based on the amount of time they had worked or where they had been, I have no doubt that the Committee of Public Accounts would be pulling in those same HSE officials and lambasting them for not treating public money with the care that is required. While I agree that it needed to move quicker - and that is why I intervened - we need to be honest that we have a role in all of this as well. HSE senior managers are genuinely cautious because of the political reaction to any errors they might make while trying to implement Government policy.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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We should all be more concerned about people who are on the breadline and people who require this money. I understand the position the Minister has on double payments. A large organisation like the HSE, with the best will in the world, can often make overpayments to staff. Those payments are recouped quite quickly and we have all dealt with cases like that in the past. My concern would be getting the money to people in the first instance; that should trump any consideration. We deal all of the time with double payments, recoupments and so on, so that should not have been an issue. However, I understand what the Minister is saying. Can he confirm precisely when he believes all of this will be resolved? He mentioned that in the next few weeks he expects everybody who is eligible for the payment to receive it. He is saying on the record of the Dáil that in the next few weeks those who are yet to receive the payment will receive it. Is that correct?

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The advice I have from the HSE and the Department is that for the 22% of private sector organisations that have submitted their applications, those payments will be made in the next few weeks. It is inevitable that we will be discussing individuals here or there or a particular contracting company within a particular hospital where a payment has been delayed. These payments should not be delayed though. Can we guarantee that every single person will be paid in the next few weeks? We can say that at an organisational level the remaining 22% are due to be paid in the next few weeks.