Written answers

Tuesday, 10 November 2020

Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment

Photo of Matt CarthyMatt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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497. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of pandemic unemployment payment applicants who were refused due to difficulty in determining PRSI contributions by county in tabular form; the efforts being made to address this issue; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34700/20]

Photo of Heather HumphreysHeather 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.

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. For self-employed individuals, my Department has recently received an update from the Revenue Commissioners on 2019 self-assessment returns. However, as returns are filed on an annual basis and the deadline for filing these returns is 10 December 2020, some returns will still be outstanding.

Where the Department cannot find any record of contributions or earnings in the reference period, it contacts the people concerned and asks them to submit evidence of employment in the form of recent payslips etc. It is important to stress that claims are not refused. The individuals concerned are advised that their claims cannot be processed, based on the information to hand, and they are asked to supply any information which they have to resolve the matter.

The Department’s experience is that some people do not provide any evidence but allow their claim to lapse – this in itself highlights why it is important to have some level of checks in place.

In general, the numbers concerned are relatively low. This week, for example, just under 343,000 claims were paid, while just over 4,800 (just over 1%) 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. My Department has contacted the people concerned and asked them to submit evidence of employment or other information required.

In total, just under 10,000 cases where my Department could not validate entitlement using Revenue record were resolved over the last two weeks by a combination of officer review and enhanced system checks. Of these, 288 were found to require formal disallowance. A detailed breakdown by county is not available at this time.

I hope that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

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