Cianan Brennan: Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection has much to answer for 

There are so many questions regarding control checks and travel information. Will we ever get any answers writes Cianan Brennan

A quiet Terminal 2 in Dublin Airport. Among the questions that need to be answered is, who approved the 30 checks revealed to have been placed on flights at Dublin Airport between the beginning of April and mid-June? Picture: PA

Questions, questions, questions. And then there were some more questions.

The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, which performed (and is still performing) some of the most essential services of all — above and beyond the call of duty — during the early months of the pandemic, has now, unfortunately, via its use of "control" measures, created a situation with the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) which serves to create a seemingly endless cavalcade of queries.

In early July, the department created a mini-tornado for itself by having its new minister Heather Humphreys sign into law regulations stipulating that people on the PUP could not travel abroad unless for essential reasons.

Shortly thereafter, the official eligibility criteria for those seeking to access the PUP was quietly changed, seemingly in reaction to an RTÉ interview given by the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar on July 26, to state that they must be “genuinely seeking work”.

Ms Humphreys initially doubled down on her officials’ zeal for reducing the numbers on the payment, before doing a u-turn the Dukes of Hazzard would have been proud of after it was pointed out that, by aligning her regulations with the travel advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs, banning travel was essentially in itself illegal.

This, lest we forget, is a department which has displayed a stellar recent pedigree in obfuscation and swearing that black is white until its blue in the face, before throwing up its hands in despair and taking everyone to court instead. Remember the PSC anyone?

However,  let’s focus on the questions raised by its inimitable handling of the PUP, now that it has emerged — as revealed in this newspaper — that over  two-thirds of the checks it placed on airline flights for people abusing their access to the unemployment payment were on travel to Romania and Moldova, thus leading to entirely merited questions about racial profiling.

First of all: why do such "control" checks need to be performed? The PUP is not a jobseekers’ benefit — it is designed for those who lost employment because of Covid-19. More than 200,000 people remain in this basket.

Two: From whence did the information regarding people’s prospective foreign travel come from? The Data Protection Commission has been asking this question, and it does not sound as if it likes the answers it has been getting. We can add this to the list of contretemps between the two bodies.

Three: What were the "reasonable grounds", as set out in legislation, for all people on the flights subject to those checks to be stopped prior to their departure, and asked for their personal details?

Four: Who approved the 30 checks revealed to have been placed on flights at Dublin Airport between the beginning of April and mid-June? The department has said that those checks were authorised by some of its most senior officials — at assistant secretary and principal level, ranks numbers two and three on the civil service’s ladder — but that written record of the authorisation does not exist. So was it given verbally? Over the phone? Via Zoom meeting?

Five: Law student and expert on social welfare law Roman Shortall was stopped at one of those checks while flying to Romania with his wife and young children. He subsequently asked for an investigation into what grounds two gardaí on secondment to Social Protection had for asking him for his details while embarking on their flight. The department’s response was that those officers had acted appropriately and within their remit. How can this be the case?

Six: Why was Mr Shortall’s wife’s child benefit shut off after this interaction (it was subsequently reinstated)?

Seven: Some 26 of the 30 checks we know of were to destinations in the east of Europe. No flights to either the US or the UK were listed. Yet we know of at least one, documented, instance of a man having his PUP stopped when flying to Scotland in May. Why was this flight not on the list?

Eight: Romanian destinations accounted for 6% of passenger numbers exiting Irish airports in the second quarter of this year. Of the 2,648 flights leaving Dublin over that three month period, roughly 1% were to Romanian airports. Yet destinations within that country account for 53% of the welfare checkpoints which were recorded as having been staged during that time period. Why is this, and what arguments can be used to allay fears that this amounts to racial profiling by our largest state department?

Nine: Why have subsequent FOI requests on this subject been refused?

Ten: How many criminal prosecutions have resulted from these flight checks? For all the effort put into staging these checkpoints, can the end truly be said to justify the means?

Eleven: Who gave the go-ahead for the blurb regarding PUP on the department’s site to be changed to read "applicants must be genuinely seeking work"?

Eleven questions seem to be enough to be getting on with. Though you can be sure there are more.

Yes, questions, questions, questions. However, when will we ever get answers? At this stage, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is deserving of an addition to its already lengthy moniker — that of the department for unaccountability.