COVID SCAM IS BLOCKED
■ Huge inquiry finds 11,000 were falsely collecting PUP funds ■ €45m saved and claimants forced to pay back the cash ■ 40% of the claims went to people not even in the country
SOCIAL welfare officers have put a stop to nearly 11,000 false pandemic unemployment claims, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal. And more than 4,000 of them were being paid to people who were not even living in Ireland.
Another 6,000 who made claims for the taxpayer-funded support already had employment, it has emerged.
However, a series of investigations have discovered their activities and saved the State about €45million.
The Department of Social Protection has confirmed that close to 10,900 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) claims were stopped, up to the end of June, as a result of the inquiries.
Officials investigated over 32,000 PUP claims and found that as many as a third were ineligible. Some 60% were stopped because of ‘employment issues’ and the
other 40% were because of ‘residency issues’. Many of the residency cases involved foreign workers who returned to their own countries during the lockdown, a major issue highlighted by the Mail in May.
And €3.5million of the money was paid back to the department, with claimants paying back €700 each, on average.
‘Where payments may have been incorrectly paid, each individual case is examined and the department then decides on a relevant course of action, up to and including prosecution, if so warranted,’ the department said.
It continued: ‘While it is acknowledged that the vast majority of people on social welfare are claiming the correct entitlement due to them, the department has a duty to ensure that it pays the right person the right amount of money at the right time.
‘Therefore, it is important that all schemes – including the PUP – operated by the department are subject to ongoing control reviews and eligibility checks.’
All of the ‘control reviews’ were carried out by internal staff within the department and the claims found to be ineligible were stopped as ‘quickly as possible’.
‘These figures relate solely to normal control and compliance work that all social welfare schemes are subject to, on an ongoing basis,’ the department said.
‘This includes desk-based assessments of customer claims, interviews with customers by
‘Officers were tipped off’
trained investigators, audits of employers’ PRSI records, specialist investigations, selfdeclarations by customers, and joint operations with other agencies such as Revenue.
‘This has resulted in savings to the department of circa €45million, had these claims continued in payment and not been stopped,’ added a spokesperson.
The PUP will be extended until April next year, while the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme will also run until next year, but will be referred to as the Employment Wage Support Scheme.
In May, The Irish Mail on Sunday revealed that at least 10% of claims for the emergency Covid welfare payment were bogus or fraudulent, according to a Social Protection Department whistleblower.
An insider said millions of euro were being paid out wrongly, every week, because cross-checks with information held by the Revenue Commissioners were not being done prior to payments being issued. Social welfare staff were instructed to approve most of the claims and check their full validity later. It also emerged that hundreds of applicants for the €350 weekly payment had tried to leave the country while still claiming it.
Issues in the department were first raised shortly after the launch of the emergency payment on March 16.
Internal correspondence showed that, at the start of April, crosschecks with Revenue found 700 applicants could not show that they had been working prior to applying for the payment.
This figure has since risen following ongoing checks.
The whistleblower said that in one case, 150 people bound for Romania were stopped at Dublin Airport before their flight.
The insider said: ‘The department’s officers were tipped off and it was subsequently discovered that 100 of them were receiving this emergency payment. But our fear is that many people have managed to return to their country and are continuing to claim PUP via their Irish bank account.’
The PUP, which was due to end in August 2020, is being extended by seven months until April 1, 2021,
Gradual reduction in payment level
giving those on emergency income support greater security as the country recovers and job opportunities return.
However, between now and April, there will be a gradual reduction in the payment level, linked to previous incomes, bringing payments in line with existing social welfare levels over time.
The scheme will close to new claimants from Thursday, September 17, from when there will be three rates of payment: ÷ People who had previously earned less than €200 a week will be paid €203; ÷ Those who previously earned between €200 and €300 per week will be able to claim €250; ÷ And people who had earned over €300 in a week will then get €300.
The number of people claiming the PUP has fallen by almost half since it peaked in May, according to the latest figures from the Department of Social Protection.
Some 313,800 people were receiving the payment last week, down from 598,000 on May 5.
The top three sectors in which employees are returning to work are accommodation and food services; wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; and construction. In terms of age, the largest cohort returning to work is from 35 to 44.