HOLIDAYING ABROAD WILL RULE OUT PUP ELIGIBILITY

‘Travel advice applies to everyone’

PEOPLE receiving the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) should be looking for work, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.

On Sunday the Department of Social Protection confirmed that 104 cases of the pandemic payment have been stopped, as a result of checks carried out at airports.

The Department said if someone went on holiday abroad they should quarantine for two weeks when they return, which would affect their ability to look for work. Mr Martin said: ‘The pandemic unemployment [payment] is going on until next March. I think people on the payment should seek work while they’re on the pandemic unemployment payment and many are.’

Earlier, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys defended the Government’s decision to stop social welfare payments for those who have travelled abroad for non-essential purposes. ‘The public travel advice is to not travel abroad, and that applies to everyone,’ Ms Humphreys said. ‘For example we have 340,000 public servants in the country, and if any one of those chose to travel abroad, they would not be paid for the two-week quarantine when they return,’ she told RTÉ Radio 1.

Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris said no one should travel abroad on holiday, whether in receipt the payment or not.

Meanwhile, Dublin Airport said that it does not collect data about any passengers. It tweeted: ‘For the avoidance of doubt, we can confirm that we are not sharing passenger data with any third party agencies.

‘In fact, we have no access to such passenger data. We cannot comment on the actions of any third party agencies.’

In a statement yesterday, the Department of Social Protection said that, as part of its normal workload, it carries out compliance inspections at ports and airports throughout the course of the year.