Written answers

Wednesday, 15 July 2020

Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

Departmental Staff

Photo of Róisín ShortallRóisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

111. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will give consideration to temporarily reallocating staff within her Department in order to deal with the large backlog of Covid-19 pandemic unemployment payment arrears in view of the financial hardship facing many on the payment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16185/20]

Photo of Heather HumphreysHeather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

My Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible.

The emergency Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment has been introduced as a time-limited emergency measure so that payments can be made as quickly as possible to the large number of people who have become fully unemployed due to the pandemic. Currently, the Department is focused on processing and managing payments to ensure that they continue to be made to all who qualify for them. The work involved in doing this is complex, with people joining and leaving the scheme each week, along with management of overlaps between the Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment and the Revenue Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme.

During the month of March, my Department received and processed jobseeker claims equivalent in number to a three year claim-load. These applications were processed as quickly as possible, with almost 59,000 people paid in the first week of the scheme, 283,000 people paid in the following week, and over 507,000 people in the third week of the scheme. Over 1 million applications in respect of 743,000 individuals have been received. To date, almost 7.8 million payments have issued at a cost of over €2.7 Billion.

My Department is aware that many people are due some arrears and that each person’s case is unique. The Department is currently developing an automated process which will examine each case and match a person’s eligibility for each week of the scheme against their payment history. This is a complex piece of work. It will take time to complete the necessary IT development work to enable the review of cases and to determine what, if any, arrears are due. All cases will be examined and where arrears arise they will be processed and claimants will be notified.

At the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic approximately 1000 staff were temporarily redeployed within my Department to meet the demand placed on the Department’s services. In addition to this, 350 staff from other Government Departments and Agencies were temporarily assigned to my Department to assist with the response to Covid-19. Temporary Clerical Officers were also recruited and over 60 remain in place to assist with the increased workload.

My Department is keeping under review, in conjunction with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the resources required to deal with the unprecedented demand on its services.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.