James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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215. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if the case of a person (details supplied) will be reviewed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19232/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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From the 29th June the rate of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) which a person will receive will depend on their gross weekly employment earnings as follows;

- For those whose prior gross earnings were €200 per week or higher (about 75% of recipients), the PUP payment rate will remain at €350 per week;

- For those whose prior gross earnings were up to €199.99 per week (about 25% of recipients), the PUP payment rate will be €203 per week.

- A person who was in receipt of Jobseeker’s Allowance or Jobseeker’s Benefit as a part-time or casual worker immediately prior to receipt of the PUP will remain on the rate of €350 irrespective of their previous earnings.

The rate of the PUP is based on prior earnings notified to Revenue. It is important to note that my Department will only accept earnings which have been notified to Revenue and subject to PRSI.

For employees – the reference periods are 2019 (full year) and 2020 (January/February).

Where an employee record was found in 2019 or 2020, the assessment was based on the information available. A person received the benefit of which ever rate was the more favourable.

Where no employee record was available, my Department looked in 2018 for self-employment contributions. The assessment of average weekly earnings is based on the Class S PRSI record only.

For self-employed people – the last year for which complete data is available is 2018 and this is the year which was used. While there a limited number of Class S PRSI returns on record for 2019, these relate to returns under the PAYE system; in a significant number of cases, these returns require further examination, or the data could distort the examination of individual employee returns for that year.

Where a customer contends that these earnings are inaccurate, they should supply documentation to support this. Customers should clearly understand that any information which is supplied to declare additional earnings will be matched against Revenue records and any discrepancies will be followed up.

Requests for a review of earnings should be emailed to PUPRerate@welfare.ie and customers should attach all supporting documentation to this email.

Alternatively, customers can write to PUP Rerate Requests, DEASP, Intreo Centre, Cork Road, Waterford, again making sure to include all supporting documentation.

For the purposes of rerating the PUP, only incomes/earnings where contributions paid at PRSI classes A/E/H/P/S can be considered under the PUP rerating rules. The person concerned has not paid contributions at any of the qualifying PRSI qualifying classes.

I trust this clarifies the matter.