More than a quarter of a million people were paid PUP money they might not have been expecting this morning.
€129 million 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.
351,400 people were paid PUP today, which is down slightly on last week.
It's expected 90,000 of those will likely return to work this week as the economy re-open.
