Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Since the onset of the pandemic, my Department has introduced a range of schemes and supports to assist persons affected by the impact of Covid-19.

These schemes include:

- Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP);

- Enhanced Covid 19 Illness Benefit;

- Covid-19 Enterprise Support Grant;

- Covid-19 Rent supplement; and

- Covid-19 Part time Job Incentive Scheme.

These schemes provide income support to individual workers whose employment has been impacted by the pandemic. All of these schemes are available to eligible people who are in need of income support.

The Covid-19 Enterprise Support Grant and the Covid-19 Part-time Job Incentive Scheme are available to self-employed workers to support them in re-opening their businesses.

In addition, funding for the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) and its successor, the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), is provided through the Department’s Vote. The administration of these schemes is undertaken by Revenue to provide support which is directed through employers. These employers may be sole traders or corporate entities.

The total cost from March 2020 to the end of April 2021 on all these schemes, including the provision of funding to Revenue for the TWSS and the EWSS, is €13.15 billion.

The breakdown of expenditure is as follows:

The spend on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) since March 2020 to April 2021 is €7.32 billion. Nearly €5 billion was paid in 2020 with €2.34 billion paid from January to end of April 2021. (Expenditure to date is now estimated to be of the order of €7.5 billion.)

The spend on the Enhanced Covid-19 Illness Benefit is €99 million, of which €57 million was paid in 2020 and €42 million in 2021 to date.

The spend on the Covid-19 Enterprise Support Grant is €8 million. €7 million was paid in 2020 and €1 million in 2021.

Expenditure on Covid-19 Rent Supplement is €60 million, of which €38 million was paid in 2020 and €22 million paid up to April 2021.

The spend on Covid-19 Part time Job Incentive for the Self-Employed is €0.4 million, most of which was incurred in 2021. This was effectively a new scheme introduced towards the end of 2020.

In terms of the schemes administered by Revenue, total TWSS expenditure was €2.7 billion. This scheme operated from March to September 2020. The spend on EWSS since September 2020 is €2.9 billion, of which €1.4 billion was paid in 2020 and €1.5 billion paid in 2021.

The very significant level of expenditure on these schemes has been crucial in helping to ease the financial impact of the pandemic on hundreds of thousands of workers and their employers.