The State spent a total of €11.5 billion on welfare supports over the last year in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the latest figures from the Department of Social Protection.
The Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) accounted for €6.3 billion of that sum, with over 850,000 people receiving support under the scheme, and 20 million individual payments issued.
Around 456,600 are claiming the benefit this week, a decrease of 8,280 compared to last week, and below the peak of 602,000 recorded last May.
However, this week's figure is in addition to the 186,702 people on the Live Register at the end of February. The PUP was developed over two days and launched on 16 March 2020 as thousands of people lost their jobs overnight due to