Almost one on ten claimants for the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) were found to be 'ineligible', a review by the State's auditor has found.
The PUP was part of a slew of emergency measures brought in by the Government to counter the severe drop in income that was cause by the pandemic.
The total spent by the State through the scheme for 2020 amounted to almost €5 billion after the first payments were made on March 24.
The demand for the scheme was massive when it was first introduce, the report said: "In the period March 2020 to end-February 2021, the Department received 1.75 million applications, comprising 1.3 million online applications and 450,000 paper-based forms."
The review looked at a sample group of claimants and found evidence that 9.4 percent of the group were "ineligible" for the payment.
The report read: "Ineligibility arose for a variety of reasons. In just under half of these cases, the available evidence showed that the claimant continued working while claiming PUP.
"In one quarter of the cases, there was no evidence that the claimant had been working prior to the pandemic."
The report continued: "In one quarter of the cases, while the claimant was eligible when the application for PUP was made, there is evidence the applicant subsequently returned to work and did not inform the Department."
The scheme is under the remit of Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys.
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