Covid-19 Pandemic Supports Dail Éireann — 2026-05-26 ============================================================ Kieran O'Donnell (FG), Limerick City I thank Deputy O'Hara for raising this important matter which I am taking on behalf of Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Calleary. In responding to the question, I will first provide an overview of the occupational injuries benefit scheme and the supports available from the Department of Social Protection to people with long Covid. The occupational injuries benefit scheme is a group of benefits for insured workers if they are unfit for work either due to an accident arising out of and in the course of employment - at work or an accident while travelling, on a continuous journey, to or from work - or due to the contraction of a prescribed disease, due to the type of work they do and in the course of insurable employment. The two main payments under the scheme are injury benefit and disablement benefit. The scheme is financed from the Social Insurance Fund, which, in turn, is funded by PRSI contributions. Persons insured at PRSI classes A, B - limited coverage -, D, J and M - limited coverage - are covered. Claims for injury benefit are made by persons in a variety of employments and for a range of reasons, including injuries from falls, car accidents and the contraction of a prescribed disease. Injury benefit is paid at a weekly personal rate of €254 for a maximum period of six months. Disablement benefit may be paid where an insured employee suffers a loss of physical or mental faculty because of a work-related accident or disease. Payment is made where the level of disablement following the accident or disease is assessed at 15% or more. Payment may be in the form of a gratuity - a non-taxable lump sum - or by way of a weekly pension. The Department also has a range of income supports, including illness benefit and invalidity pension, at the same or higher rates of payment as payments under the occupational injuries benefit scheme, which are available to people who cannot work due to the effects of long Covid. I recognise the testimony the Deputy has given on behalf of, I presume, one of his constituents. In November 2022, the European Commission made a non-binding recommendation on the recognition of Covid-19 as an occupational disease. The Commission did not make a recommendation in relation to long Covid. The decision regarding recognition is a member state competence. Recognition of Covid-19 as an occupational disease confers different entitlements in different member states, with employers paying the compensation in some countries and social insurance systems paying in others. In November 2023, the Department of Social Protection published a report on the inclusion of long Covid in the occupational injuries benefit regulations. The report concluded that Covid-19 does not satisfy the statutory criteria for recognition as an occupational illness or accident at work. Specifically, it found that presumptions about workplace transmission would not be sustainable as it is not possible to establish with confidence that the disease has been contracted through a person's occupation and not through community transmission. This is because data shows that community transmission was the primary means of transmission. It is important to note that even if Ireland did recognise Covid-19 as an occupational disease, this would not encompass long Covid and would only apply to new claims for new cases of Covid-19. As such, it would not benefit those who contracted Covid-19 during the pandemic. As mentioned earlier, the Department's range of income supports, including illness benefit and invalidity pension, at the same or higher rates of payment as occupational injuries benefit, are available to people who cannot work due to the effects of long Covid. It is important to note that entitlement to these supports is generally not dependent on the nature of the illness or disability but on the extent to which a particular illness or disability impairs or restricts a working age person's capacity to work. With regard to additional supports, the Department also provides an additional needs payment under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme to help to meet essential expenditure which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income. This includes certain supplements to assist with ongoing or recurring costs that cannot be met from a person's own resources and are deemed to be necessary. With specific reference to workers in the health services, the report found that the temporary scheme of paid leave for public health service employees was the appropriate channel through which a targeted sectoral support should be considered. This temporary scheme was a matter for the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, who extended it a number of times. The scheme ended on 31 December 2025. Any employee of the public health service remaining unwell after that date may utilise the full provisions of the public service sick leave scheme which will provide further support. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:04+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-26