A total of 733 people in Galway closed their Pandemic Unemployment Payment claims since last week to return to work, new figures show.
The overall the number of people receiving a payment today in Galway is 21,783, while nationally almost 403,000 people are of the PUP.
The government has paid €119.9 million in payments into bank accounts today, taking the total cost of the PUP since the start of the pandemic to €7.3 billion.
The national PUP figures are in addition to the 183,096 people who were on the Live Register at the end of March.
Nationally, 14,500 people closed their PUP account to return to work since last week.
“This week, we have seen a fall in the number of people in receipt of the PUP,” said Minister Heather Humphreys, commenting on this week’s figures.
“This is encouraging and is an indication that people are returning to work as certain sectors open and restrictions are slowly eased.”
Minister Humphreys said that there are reasons to be hopeful and optimistic.
“The number of vaccinations continues to ramp up on a daily basis and later this week, the Government will set out a roadmap for a further easing of restrictions in May and June,” she said.
“Easing restrictions too quickly could cause a spike in Covid-19 cases and set us backwards. Government wants to avoid this and the reopening of our economy will therefore be on a gradual, cautious and phased basis.”
