Row erupts over €1.4m paid to social welfare office managers

The 56 social welfare offices dotted around Ireland are run on a private contract basis, with their managers not officially employed by the State. Picture: Denis Minihane

More than €1.4m was paid to the managers of Ireland’s social welfare offices in 2022, in part in recompense for the number of Ukrainian nationals whose claims they had been tasked with processing.

The latest edition of the public accounts for 2022 show that a row has broken out over the making of those discretionary payments between the Department of Public Expenditure, which believes the money should have been returned to the Exchequer, and the Department of Social Protection, which handles the welfare system and made the payments.