Last Thursday (April 9th) a significant number of people were sent an email by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) – otherwise known as Welfare.
This email informed them that their claim for the Pandemic Unemployment of €350 a week had been cancelled or rejected.
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DEASP admitted, on Friday 10th, to sending out some 1700 emails in error and were quoted in Journal.ie as saying that all those people had been sent a follow-up email of apology and their payments would resume on Wed 15th April.
But many others on top of the 1700 never got the follow-up email. There must be hundreds , maybe thousands of others who have had payments cancelled.
After a complete lack of response from DEASP and some confusing phone calls from affected claimants – there were some developments on (Tues 14th). From an email we saw – it seems (as we suspected) – that Welfare did a cross checking exercise last week to check against people who had been registered by their employer under the Wage Subsidy Scheme
11:45 Wed 15th April – Update
The DEASP has confirmed today (15th April) that if an employer declared to Revenue that they were paying an employee under the Wage Subsidy scheme – Payments of the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment to those employees were stopped on 13th April. Even if the employee was never paid under the wage subsidy scheme.
DEASP say that they are reviewing claims affected and where it appears that an employer had registered the employee for the Wage Subsidy Scheme but has now stopped paying the employee. In such cases – the Department will continue to make the Pandemic Unemployment Payment but will keep the situation under review on a weekly basis.
Restored Payments
They say that “a number” of people whose April 14th payment was ceased on the basis of Wage Subsidy employer registration will now have their Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment restored.
They say all the payments for this group should arrive by Friday 17 April. (Provided that the people concerned continue to receive no employer payment )
These people will then be restored to the normal Tuesday payment cycle from Tuesday 21st April. The Dept said they are contacting all these customers this week to inform them of this update
But – any employees that continue to be paid by employers – will not have their claims reinstated.
If you don’t get your claim reinstated – you should first get in touch with your employer to make sure they have removed you from the payroll.
EMPLOYERS
Employers have been asked by DEASP to notify the Department at the following email address StopAlertTWSS@welfare.ie and also the Revenue Commissioners , if they stop paying their staff using the Temporary Covid-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme . This notification should include the PPSN and details of staff affected.
Contacting Social Welfare
If you can’t get through on the main Welfare number 1890-800-024. – maybe try 012481398, or your local Office? Details Here
support@mywelfare.ie is one email address you can use.
Don’t be too concerned about the cost of 1890 numbers – they are not as expensive as they used to be.
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