Department will check on some Covid-19 enhanced illness benefit recipients, states C&AG
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People deemed to be at "high risk" of receiving irregular or unwarranted enhanced illness benefit will be subject to analysis by the Department of Social Protection, while €18m of the temporary Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme paid out was due for recovery at the end of last July.
It comes at the State's financial watchdog, the Comptroller & Auditor General, said the required recent PRSI contribution history of claimants was not checked before the claim was put into payment, "giving rise to a risk of irregular payment where claimants did not meet the eligibility conditions".
According to the C&AG, the department has said it will conduct an analysis of a number of high-risk customers to confirm their eligibility.
The enhanced illness benefit was drafted in as part of the Covid-19 response and requires the claimant to have at least one paid qualifying social insurance contribution in the four weeks immediately prior to claiming payment, and claims must be supported by a medical certificate from a doctor. Expenditure on the scheme amounted to €57m in 2020.
In the chapter of the C&AG report on the regularity of social welfare payments, the watchdog notes that the implementation of the department’s control regime for existing welfare schemes was affected by operational restrictions imposed due to the pandemic.
A large proportion of the Covid-related supports in 2020 were accounted for by the pandemic unemployment payment scheme and the temporary Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme (TWSS). However, it said: "An examination of a sample of PUP claims provides an indication that the level of irregular payment for that scheme in 2020 is likely to have been material.
The department and the C&AG had previously noted a divergence in estimated rates of net excess payments, from 0.6% of the working family payment to 12.7% in farm assist and from 0.7% in the Widow’s/widower’s/surviving civil partner’s contributory pension to 6% when it came to illness benefit.
However, the department told the watchdog that efforts to tighten up those overpayments in 2019 meant it was unlikely there were significant overpayments last year, even though the usual compliance and monitoring efforts were limited by the pandemic, including through secondment of staff.