Around 205 civil and public servants have been redeployed to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to help process an "unprecedented" flood of welfare claims due to the Covid-19 virus.
In a statement, the Department confirmed that it has also hired over 100 temporary clerical officers since 2 March, while a small number of former department employees who now work in other government departments, have been reassigned back to deal with social protection work.
To address claims more rapidly, in recent weeks the Department has temporarily ceased or scaled back certain other operations, transferring staff onto more critical work such as claim processing and call banks.
The Department confirmed that it had received a large number of offers of help from civil and public service colleagues, but many of those offers could not be utilised because of the lack of access to departmental systems, and the need to invoke social distancing protocols within the department's offices.
The Department stressed that it has taken steps to split teams over physical locations to ensure entire processing units are not affected if a staff member becomes ill, and to cover off the possibility that a building could become inaccessible for a period of time.
It has built in social distancing protocols, allowing as many staff as possible to work from home, as well as staggering rosters and attendance to limit the number of staff working in any one area at the same time.
However, it goes on to say: "Given the nature of the work it is not possible to arrange for all staff to work from home and most staff are required to come into the office as we have a significant public office network which has been hugely required over the last number of weeks."
The Department notes that staff "have readily worked long hours over the last couple of weeks, through the weekends and the Bank Holiday to support those most in need."
