More than a quarter of a million people received a pandemic unemployment payment (PUP) they might not have been expecting this morning.
€129m in arrears payments have been made to 286,000 people.
It comes ahead of the Christmas bonus being paid to welfare recipients next week.
The Government estimates that the two payments will pump half a billion euro into the economy over the next few weeks.
More than 350,000 people were paid the PUP today, with 90,000 of those likely to return to work this week as the economy reopens.
