Under pressure: how Covid-19 shook up the social welfare system
Between investigating PUP fraud and unprecedented numbers of new applications, social protection officials have battled a hugely increased workload since the coronavirus crisis began unfolding last March
Last summer, social welfare inspectors decided to pay a visit to a large construction site to check if any workers there were still claiming the pandemic unemployment payment. As they couldn’t do face-to-face meetings, they asked the contractors to supply them with the details of the 1,364 on site that day.
A subsequent check against the Department of Social Welfare’s database showed that 192 were still claiming the PUP in breach of the rules, and ...