Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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538. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if students can continue to claim the pandemic unemployment payment in circumstances in which they were in part-time employment prior to the pandemic, claimed the payment and are now due to return to college but their part-time employment remains closed due to Covid-19. [28668/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Under normal circumstances students are not eligible to receive unemployment payments. However the Pandemic Unemployment Payment scheme was made available as an emergency response to the unprecedented number of people, including students, who lost their employment as a consequence of the pandemic and who are not being paid by their employer.

The Social Welfare (Covid-19) (Amendment) Act 2020 put the pandemic unemployment payment on a statutory basis since 5th August and the scheme has been extended until the end of March 2021. I have also secured agreement to keep the pandemic unemployment payment open to new applications until the end of 2020.

Recipients of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment including students, who are returning to college, must continue to satisfy the conditions of the scheme to maintain continued payment.

I trust this clarifies the position at this time.