Controversy after Revenue asked Social Protection for data on 1,616 PUP recipients

A GDPR and data protection expert says domestic legislation on the sharing of data between government departments, in this instance regarding pandemic welfare payments, is overridden by a CJEU ruling. Stock picture

Revenue asked the Department of Social Protection to investigate 1,616 pandemic unemployment payment (PUP) recipients last year, but questions have arisen about sharing of citizens’ data between state agencies.

Over the last three years, case-specific enquiries, where customer data was given to the Department’s Special Investigations Unit by Revenue, went from 1,403 cases in 2019 to 1,212 cases in 2020 and then rose to 1,616 last year. So far this year there have been 641 case-specific enquiries.