Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

529. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if a person can still qualify to maintain the pandemic unemployment payment (details supplied) in circumstances in which a person has a part-time PAYE employment which provides income of less than €960 over eight weeks. [25512/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) is one of the key supports introduced by my Department for qualifying employees and self -employed who have lost employment due to Covid-19. To date expenditure on the scheme is approximately €7.5 billion.

To be eligible for PUP a person must satisfy the qualifying conditions of the statutory scheme which includes that they are not engaged in insurable employment.

A special arrangement was introduced to allow the self-employed to engage in limited levels of self-employment and retain their PUP in order to continue to maintain their business.  A self- employed individual may earn income from self- employment up to €960 net of expenses, over a rolling 8- week period payment.

There are options available to a person to engage in insurable employment whereby they may be entitled to income support under the Jobseeker's Benefit or the means tested Jobseeker's Allowance scheme, provided that they are unemployed for 4 days in 7 consecutive days and that they satisfy the conditions for this support.

I would advise that a person taking up reduced levels of insurable employment should contact their local Intreo Centre for advice. I trust that this clarifies the position for the Deputy.