Covid-19: Less than 25% of ineligible Stormont grants returned

Less than a quarter of payments issued incorrectly through Stormont's emergency Covid-19 support scheme have been returned so far, BBC News NI has learned.

The £10,000 payment was sent automatically to any business in receipt of small business rates relief but some were found to be ineligible.

By 6 January, 124 of 538 payments (23%) made in error had been reclaimed.

The Department for the Economy has said a review of the scheme is under way.

It previously estimated that 452 payments had been identified as ineligible under the scheme, totalling about £4m it planned to recoup.

Now the department has confirmed to BBC News NI that this figure has risen to 538 potentially incorrect payments, with just 124 of those now reclaimed - totalling £1.227m.

A spokesperson for the department said the review of the scheme was "examining the potential for incorrect payments, and initiating recovery action where appropriate".

"This review will inform the overall evaluation of all the Covid-19 grant schemes in due course," they added.

Sinead McLaughlin, the SDLP deputy chair of Stormont's Economy committee, said it was "disappointing" that more claimants have not yet repaid the grants issued to them in error.

"Many of these will have known they were not entitled to support when they received it and should have returned the funds immediately," she said.

"What is even more distressing is that there are many businesses that have not received financial support, which they desperately need."

"These systems of administration - which are the responsibilities of the Department for the Economy and the Department of Finance - need to be improved urgently."

Audit office investigation

A separate investigation into the handling of the scheme by the Northern Ireland Audit Office is already under way.

It previously estimated that the final cost of the payments could run to more than £13m.

West Tyrone MLA Catherine Kelly was the fourth Sinn Féin official to resign over a failure to return money from the emergency Covid fund

In October 2020, four Sinn Féin members resigned over a delay in returning payments automatically made to three offices through the scheme - MP and MLA constituency offices were not supposed to qualify.

Some of the other mistakes uncovered include people receiving duplicate payments, getting £20,000 instead of £10,000, while 52 wind turbine owners also incorrectly received payments automatically.

Land and Property Services (LPS) - through the Department of Finance - was in charge of checking who qualified.

The agency previously said it was under "enormous pressure" when payments were being made at the onset of the pandemic, and that the mistakes were the result of an "honest error".