2020 Annual Statistics Report
- Published on: 9 August 2021
- Last updated on: 7 December 2021
This is the thirty-eight issue of the annual Statistical Information on Social Welfare Services report prepared by the Department of Social Protection. It sets out comprehensive data relating to services provided by the department.
Readers’ views and comments on the report are welcome and should be addressed to statsunit@welfare.ie
The year 2020 was an exceptional year for the Department of Social Protection. As the year began, Ireland’s economy was performing steadily with stable economic growth. The sudden arrival of COVID-19 had devastating consequences for public health, the economy and the labour market. The Government introduced a number of supports to cushion the impact to the public of the public health emergency restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. These supports included both an employment income support (COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment) and wage supports (Temporary Wage and Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme).
To fully capture the statistics behind the range of supports provided by the department in response to the public health emergency, this report is divided into two parts.
The normal edition of the report is in Part I and relates to statistics on all social protection schemes for 2020 and earlier years. In the case of data relating to recipients and beneficiaries, the figures, unless otherwise stated, refer to 31 December each year. The Operational Activity section, on the other hand, refers to accumulated annual figures. Several tables, which provide a breakdown of recipients or beneficiaries by some characteristic such as number of dependants or age, are referred to as “estimated”. This means that the proportionate breakdown, which is considered to be a reliable estimate, was established at a date other than, but close to, 31 December.
Part II covers COVID-19 related supports offered by the department. Note that the Temporary Wage Subsidy Support and Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme were administered by the Office of the Revenue Commissioners but subsidised by expenditure from the department’s accounts. In addition, the recipient numbers in this part of the report refer to accumulative annual figures.
