Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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1506. To ask the Minister for Health the number of eligible front-line workers who have yet to receive the pandemic bonus payment; and the number who have received the payment, in tabular form. [1518/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Government announced a COVID-19 pandemic recognition payment for certain front-line public sector healthcare workers, to recognise their unique role during the pandemic. To date, payments have been made in respect of over 138,000 eligible HSE and Section 38 staff, with appeals from other HSE and Section 38 staff due to be adjudicated by an independently Chaired appeals board within weeks. 

Certain non-HSE/Section 38 healthcare employees are covered by the Government Decision, and efforts are underway to complete an efficient and expeditious roll-out to these staff. These include eligible staff in: 

1. Private sector/independent nursing homes and hospices; 

2. Eligible staff working on-site in Section 39 long-term residential care facilities for people with disabilities; 

3. Agency roles working in the HSE; 

4. Health Care Support Assistants (also known as home help / home care / home support) contracted to the HSE; 

5. Members of the Defence Forces redeployed to work in front-line Covid-19 exposed environments in the HSE;  

6. Paramedics employed by Dublin Fire Brigade to deliver services on behalf of the HSE.  

Regarding cohorts 1-4 above, the HSE and an external contractor, KOSI Corp, are currently progressing the roll-out to these eligible staff. As of 13^thJanuary , information on the process involved has now been provided by the HSE and KOSI Corp to 862 organisations, and of these, 647 have applied for funding to make the recognition payment. I am pleased to confirm that347 organisations have already been paid or approved for payments for 27,215 eligible staff, with more due in the coming weeks. 

As this information is being collected, validated, corrected, and acted on in real-time in a self-assessment manner, it is not possible to estimate exactly how many individuals have yet to be paid nor when the remaining employers will have applied for funding. 

Regarding cohorts 5 and 6 above, the Department of Health has transferred approx. €2.1m in funding in early November to the Department of Defence and Dublin City Council to enable payments to these eligible staff. While implementation of the payment at local level is a matter for those bodies, figures from mid-November confirmed that 96% of eligible staff in cohort 6 had been paid. 

Finally I would again like to thank all healthcare workers for their extraordinary efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.