Revenue claws back €50m in wage-subsidy payments to employers under compliance programme

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said a further €7.3m remained to be collected, with most of the outstanding amount included in the so-called debt warehouse.

Revenue has so far clawed back €50m under its compliance programme for payments made under the the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme, or EWSS, it has emerged. 

That is according to new figures provided by the Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe in relation to the Covid-19 wage support for employers.

In a written Dáil reply to Ged Nash, the Labour finance spokesperson, Minister Donohoe said the compliance programme has to date covered 7,223 employers, or 14% of the 51,450 employers who registered for the EWSS.

"Of these, 2,584 were Revenue-initiated contacts, and 4,639 were voluntary amendments made by employers where they were liable to repay EWSS subsidies to Revenue,” he said.  

Minister Donohoe said the total amount collected to date by Revenue was €50m, and a further €7.3m remained to be collected, with most of the outstanding amount included in the so-called debt warehouse.

The EWSS compliance programme follows a similar exercise for the scheme's successor, the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme, or TWSS, which came to an end in summer last year. 

Minister Donohoe said compliance checks had been completed for 64,710 employers, representing almost all of the TWSS recipients. 

The compliance checks have shown “significantly high levels of compliance with the TWSS requirements by employers with 1,523 employers, approximately 2% of cases, having to repay the TWSS subsidy as they failed to meet the requirements of the scheme”, he said, with settlements in those cases totalling  €27.7m.

Minister Donohoe said that following an exercise conducted at the end of June in respect of over 67,000 employer registrations showed the overall TWSS liability was €309m.

In relation to the EWSS spend by Government, Minister Donohoe said that payments of over €4.7bn, as well as PRSI credits of over €750m, have so far been granted to 51,400 employers to subsidise the wages of 656,900 workers. 

He reiterated the Government's pledge that the EWSS would face no cliff edge, with the scheme extended to the end of December. He said decisions about the shape of the scheme would be taken shortly, adding that no decisions have been taken so far.