Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent)
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158. To ask the Minister for Health the reason for the delay in issuing Covid-19 recognition payments; when he expects outstanding payments to be made to frontline workers in private nursing homes, hospices and agency healthcare assistants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3400/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Subject at all times to the eligibility criteria, the pandemic recognition payment is payable to certain specific non-public-sector cohorts below:

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;

The HSE, with administrative help from external contractor KOSI Corporation, are asking employers in the cohorts above to identify current and former eligible staff, collate this information and documentation into an application pack which has been sent to them, and upload to a secure portal established by KOSI Corp. Once received, KOSI Corp verify the information in these application packs and advise the HSE of the payment value, so that payment can then be transferred to the organisation and passed on to their eligible employees. The HSE can turn around these payments quickly.

As of 20 January, the HSE have received returns from 676 employers, and while 405 of these have been processed, many of these returns have required review. While these reviews can take time, they are necessary and have averted €1.054 million in potential overpayments so far. To assist employers with their applications and queries, a dedicated helpdesk has been set up, which has fielded over 3,000 employer queries to date.

The Department and HSE are keen to ensure that eligible frontline workers will receive their payment as quickly as possible, and as of 20 January, funding has been transferred to 405 covered employers for 32,609 eligible employees' payments, to a total value of €30,010,600 so far.

While the HSE are making every effort to expedite payments, until they receive information regarding the number eligible staff in an organisation, they cannot issue funding. You will understand that, as this information is being collected 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.