A total of €336.2m in Covid-19 wage subsidy supports has been repaid by employers to the Revenue Commissioners.
In a written Dail reply, the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe has confirmed that the €336.2m was repaid following "contact made regarding repayment issues".
Minister Donohoe also confirmed to Labour Finance spokesman, Ged Nash that €87m of the total has been included in Revenue's Debt Warehouse scheme.
Minister Donohoe confirmed in the latest Revenue initiative concerning the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) repayments, it has recouped €3m.
The Minister revealed that in the second quarter of this year, Revenue invited some 42,500 employers who received Covid-19 wage subsidy payments to perform a final self-review of their EWSS eligibility for all periods of the scheme.
"Any overclaims identified by employers by 30th September 2022 will be dealt with without the imposition of interest or penalties and declared liabilities and may be included in the Debt Warehouse scheme by those employers," he said.
"To date, €3.3m subsidy has been repaid by 281 employers following that invitation," he added.
The figures provided by Minister Donohoe show that there were 38,049 contacts made regarding repayment issues concerning the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) that resulted in €258m being repaid.
Minister Donohoe revealed that €78.2m was repaid concerning 7,728 contacts regarding repayment issues on the EWSS.
The Minister stated that there are 1,708 cases in relation to EWSS repayments that are not yet resolved.
The Minister revealed that 542 employers have returned all EWSS subsidies at €57m with a further 4,269 employers partially repaying €76.8m in EWSS subsidiaries.
A further 31,300 employers made partial TWSS subsidy repayments totalling €258m and 696 made full TWSS repayments of €7.2m.
Minister Donohoe confirmed that €7bn was paid out under the EWSS scheme and €2.8bn under the TWSS scheme.
Minister Donohoe also confirmed that there are no plans by Revenue to repeat its 2021 exercise which highlighted the number of firms who made dividends that were in receipt of Covid-19 wage subsidy support payments.
Minister Donohoe stated that 866 companies had received gross EWSS subsidy payments of €396m and 29 of these employers have returned all subsidies received totalling €28.7m while 121 have partially repaid EWSS received amounting to €8.6m.
"However, it was not possible to determine whether the distributions were cash or non-cash in nature or whether any dividends were paid to shareholders," Minister Donohoe said.
The Minister also advised that it was not possible to determine if the dividends related to profit reserves earned before or during the pandemic.
