Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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88. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the criteria that must be satisfied by a self-employed person who is receiving a pandemic unemployment payment and who may also earn €480 gross per month; the date this was commenced; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33963/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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In order to address concerns expressed by self-employed people relating to the difficulties they face in resuming activity, the uncertainty of income streams given the ongoing economic disruption and the fact that in many cases work will be of an occasional or intermittent nature during the initial period of a return to work, the Government introduced changes to the Pandemic Unemployment Payment as part of Budget 2021.

These changes included formal provision to enable self-employed people on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (including arts/entertainment sector workers and taxi drivers) recommencing employment earn up to €480 over a rolling 4 week period while retaining entitlement to the Pandemic Unemployment Payment. The changes are effective from 13 October 2020.

In effect an earnings threshold of €480 per rolling four week period will be used to assess whether or not a self-employed person is substantively employed/unemployed. Any self-employed person earning below this amount will be considered to be unemployed for the purposes of assessing entitlement to the Pandemic Unemployment Payment. The earnings threshold is aligned with the income disregard currently in place for people in receipt of Disability Allowance. A self-employed person availing of this does not need to seek approval from the Department and they do not need to report these earnings to the Department on a regular basis. They do need to keep a record of all income for the period.

The earnings threshold approach will be implemented in the first instance by means of self-assessment, with spot checks of a sample of claims by Social Welfare inspectors and ultimately reconciliation with Revenue earnings returns.

I hope that this clarifies matters for the Deputy.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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89. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of pandemic unemployment payment applicants that have been refused the payment on the grounds that her Department does not have a recent record of PRSI contributions paid by them at the following classes: A/E/H/P/S; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33972/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment was put on a statutory footing with effect from 5 August 2020 as a social welfare benefit to help mitigate the adverse economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is available to employees who lost their employment on or after 13 March 2020 as a direct consequence of Covid-19. It is also available to self-employed people whose income from self-employment ceased or reduced as a direct consequence of the pandemic to the extent that they would be available to take up full-time employment.

The Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment is payable where a person was an employed contributor in the week immediately before he or she ceased to earn an income from the employment concerned. Similarly, a self-employed person must have been in insurable self-employment in the week immediately before the date on which their self-employment income ceased or reduced. It is a long-standing feature of social welfare legislation that individuals who are engaged in employment or self-employment are liable to pay PRSI on those activities. In those circumstances, persons claiming the Pandemic Unemployment Payment should have no difficulty satisfying these conditions.

In the case of employees, the Department uses earnings data supplied by the Revenue Commissioners for 2019 and 2020 in the case of employees, and 2018 and 2019 in the case of self-employed people. Data is updated as often as practicable, and in the case of employees on a daily basis.

Where the Department cannot find any record of contributions or earnings in the reference period (for example because returns have not been filed with Revenue or are filed late) it contacts the people concerned and asks them to submit evidence of employment in the form of recent payslips etc. When this is received and verified, claims are put into payment as soon as possible. Dedicated teams are in place to follow up on replies as quickly as possible.

I can assure the Deputy that my Department is doing everything in its power to process payments efficiently and quickly and, since Level 5 restrictions were introduced, has processed and paid over 100,000 new claimants.

It is always the case when processing such a large volume of claims in such a short period that there will be some cases where claims are not paid due to incomplete or missing information or because a person does not satisfy the eligibility criteria.

In general, the numbers concerned are relatively low. This week, for example, 330,000 claims were paid while just 8,600 (just under 3%) were held where the Department could not validate entitlement using Revenue records or where the information provided by the applicant was incomplete or where it is clear that the applicant does not meet the eligibility criteria. As I have outlined, the Department has contacted the people concerned and asked them to submit evidence of employment or other information required.

I hope that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.