Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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187. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the status of arrears owed to a person (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26119/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Since the introduction of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment scheme in March, approx. 750,000 people have applied for payment and in some cases, they have done so on a number of occasions as they moved in and out of employment. Consequently, there are over 1 million applications to be examined to determine if arrears are due.

In order to address an issue of this scale, the Department is currently developing an automated process, which will examine each case and look at their overall entitlement to payment and match this against their payment history. The work involved is complex as the Pandemic Unemployment Payment system itself evolved from a manual applications system to one where applications were submitted online and paid over two different payment platforms (one from March to July and the second from July to date).

Given the complexity attached to the project, it will take some time yet to complete the necessary development work to review all cases and to determine to what extent, if any, arrears are due to individuals. It is hoped to make the arrears payments before the end of this year.