The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection has defended its inspections at airports to check if recipients of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment were leaving the country, which it claimed had generated €10m in savings to the Exchequer.
There was controversy over the summer when it emerged that inspectors were cutting off the payment based on questioning passengers at airports and that the vast majority of the flights targetted for inspections involved routes to Romania or Moldova.
Responding to parliamentary questions from Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy, Minister Heather Humphreys noted that all social welfare schemes were subject to "control and compliance" checks to ensure that Exchequer resources provided for