Overpayments and recoupments

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An overpayment is defined as an amount paid in excess of what is owed. This arises when you are paid monies (e.g. salary, allowances etc) in excess of what is due to you.

Overpayments occur for a number of reasons, as outlined below:

• Late notification of leave to be taken by you, either paid or unpaid.
  This can be caused by you having to take leave such as Shorter Working Year, Career Break or Carers/Parental Leave at late notice, or by late approval of your leave request by line manager/local HR
• Exceeding your sick leave thresholds or not submitting the required documentation on time. Further information on your sick leave entitlements and obligations while on sick leave can be found by clicking the following link to Sick Leave Circular 05/2018
• Late notification of Allowance alterations and/or Work Pattern changes
• Processing error or delay within your department or the National Shared Services Offices

All overpayments must be repaid to The Exchequer, irrespective of time lapsed, amount to be recouped, or the origin cause of the overpayment. Under the provisions of the Overpayment Circular 07/2018, all Civil Servants who receive an overpayment, are required to repay at the first opportunity and in full.

Our Recoupments team is obliged to recoup overpayments under Circular 07/2018. The NSSO Recoupments Team is authorised to recoup standard overpayments at a minimum of 8% of gross weekly/fortnightly salary, or have the overpayment recouped within a 12-month time frame, whichever is shorter. Delayed Pay Adjustments (DPA) are to be recouped over a period of one month and AutoRecoupments (AR) to be recouped at the first available opportunity.

If you are notified by another team such as absence or leave management that an overpayment may have occurred during a transaction (see Q2 for root causes), this is a courtesy notification and you are not required to take any action. Our recoupments team will issue you an overpayment notification in due course, via email and your recorded postal address. The notification includes all relevant information below;

• How the overpayment occurred
• Period to which the overpayment relates
• Options for off-setting monies to be repaid
• Proposed repayment plan
• Policy guidelines and clauses
• Contact details and request for response

In accordance with Circular 07/2018 once you have received the notification letter, you should make contact with our recoupments team as soon as feasible, and must be within 21 days to discuss your options, confirm your recoupment plan, and to raise any queries you may have.

Overpayments must be repaid in line with Circular 07/2018, and can be repaid in a number of ways, most commonly through salary deductions – 8% of your gross salary or within a 12 month timeframe, whichever is shorter.

You may surrender Non-Statutory Annual Leave in respect of an overpayment if you wish. Please contact our Recoupments Team to make this request, we will calculate the number of days available (if any) to offset and determine the monetary value of same. An offset proposal will issue to you in due course, and if you agree our Recoupments Team will issue an instruction to make the offset and update the outstanding balance of your overpayment.

You may also surrender Time in Lieu for bank holidays accrued during periods of sick leave. If you wish to surrender Time in Lieu you need to contact your HR Department in the first instance. If you have Time in Lieu available to offset against your overpayment, your HR Department will instruct Payroll accordingly. Payroll will in turn notify our Recoupments Team of the impact on your overpayment balance.

It may be possible to increase the repayment amount per pay period to clear your overpayment in a shorter timeframe. You can discuss your repayment options with the Recoupments Team after you have received your first notification letter.

It is not possible to negotiate repayment plans less than 8% of your gross salary, unless our Recoupments Team receive instruction from your HR Department, under Hardship Applications (see Q12 for further details on the Hardship Application process).

Once an overpayment to you has been identified, a case will be raised in the National Shared Services to instruct Payroll to calculate the monies to be recouped. The amount to be recouped is calculated taking into account your Statutory Contributions such as your ASC, PAYE, P.R.S.I and USC (see your Payslip Explained), in line with Revenue Commissioners, and Circular 07/2018.
There are 2 types of overpayment recovery;

Current-Year Overpayment Recoupment: This refers to any overpayment recovery within the same year of the overpayment origin. Any overpayment deductions through Payroll will be applied as gross deductions from gross salary.

Out-of-Year Overpayment Recoupment: This refers to any overpayment recovery outside the year of overpayment origin. Any overpayment deductions through Payroll will be applied as gross deductions from net salary.

The above recovery methods are applicable to the offset of annual leave also.

When this figure has been added to your case our Recoupments team will write out to you to advise the overpayment amount and the proposed salary deductions.

If you require a breakdown of how this overpayment amount was determined please contact our Recoupments Team and we will liaise with Payroll for a detailed summary of this.

If you have been overpaid money:

• for a period of five days or less

or

• if you have exceeded your paid sick leave thresholds and have incurred an overpayment of 10 days or less

This is known as a Delayed Pay Adjustment (DPA) and the pay adjustments should begin automatically in the next available pay run and will be calculated and applied by Payroll.

The amount of the DPA is spread out over a period of one month – over 4 weeks if you are weekly paid or over 2 pay periods if you are fortnightly paid.

If you have been overpaid money:

• because you have exceeded your self-certified sick leave thresholds

or

• when you take unplanned unpaid leave or unpaid leave without the required notification period to us.

This is known as an Auto Recoupment (AR) and the total overpaid amount is recouped from your salary automatically at the first available opportunity. If your salary does not cover the full amount due, deductions will continue from each subsequent pay period until the amount is fully repaid.

If you are currently not on the Civil Service Payroll

If you have an overpayment and are currently off the Civil Service payroll please contact our Recoupments Team urgently for details on how you can repay this DPA/AR amount by Electronic Funds Transfer. We will provide your department’s bank details and directions on how to do this, otherwise you will be liable for a DPA or AutoRecoupment if you resume on Payroll.

There are 2 methods of recoupment in which little or no advance notification may arise;

(a) A Delayed Pay Adjustment (DPA) is applied in the following situations:

1. When you have been overpaid for a period of five days or less.

or

2. When you exceed your paid sick leave thresholds and you incur an overpayment of 10 days or less. Details on how to track your sick leave thresholds can be found on Absence Management

(b) An Auto Recoupment is applied in the following situations:

3. When you exceed your self-certified sick leave thresholds

or

4. When you take unplanned unpaid leave or unpaid leave without the required notification period to us.

DPAs and ARs are an automatic reconciliation on payroll and our recoupments team is notified once the instruction is live or has been applied to your payslip, therefore although we endeavour to notify you as soon as feasible, the nature of automatic recoupments or delayed pay adjustments mean you may not be made aware of the recoupment until the monies have been recovered.

The National Shared Services Office (NSSO) will notify you of an overpayment by letter to your mailing address as held by you on your HR service.

You will also be notified to the email address contained on the NSSO HR System.

The details of the reason for your overpayment, the overpayment amount and the repayment schedule will be outlined in this letter.

Please ensure you keep your contact details up to date at all times on the Human Resource Management System (HRMS) so we have correct contact details on file for you.

Sometimes overpayments are not uncovered immediately by the NSSO; therefore it may be some time before you are notified.

Please contact our Recoupments Team and we will liaise with Payroll to confirm your outstanding balance.

If you are retiring from the Civil Service with an overpayment you can arrange to have your current deductions increased to completely discharge the overpayment in advance of your exit.

The money can also be taken from your Pension Lump Sum or pension payments when you are retired.

If you are resigning from the Civil Service with an overpayment you can arrange to have your current deductions increased to completely discharge the overpayment prior to your exit.

Any arrears owed to you such as untaken Annual Leave or refund of Pension Contributions, will be offset against your overpayment. If the overpayment is not cleared on leaving employment, we will notify you of the correct Bank details for your employer to facilitate payment by Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).

If you are not in a position to repay the money in line with the proposed salary plan outlined in the first notification letter you receive from our Recoupments team, please make contact with us ASAP as per the instructions within the correspondence.

We will provide you with contact details for your Local HR. Your Local HR will liaise with you with a view to determining a suitable repayment plan under hardship purposes and will advise us accordingly if this is agreed. Once we receive this agreement our Recoupments Team will send an instruction to Payroll to implement these deductions on your behalf.

By repaying your overpayment in the year it occurred, the gross amount is deducted from your gross pay. You may choose to increase deductions to prevent out of year deductions from occurring.

If your overpayment is fully repaid in advance of the end of the tax year in which the overpayment occurred, all tax relief will be processed through payroll.

For overpayment (s) recouped outside of the tax year of origin, the gross recoupment values will be deducted from net pay.

The Revenue Commissioners four year tax rule allows for individuals to claim applicable taxation refunds for the previous four years only. E.g. Claims for 2020 must be made by 31st December 2024.

Once an overpayment has been fully repaid, you can request a Statement of Recoupment of Emolument from the Payroll Services at revenueoverpaymentstatement@nsso.gov.ie This statement is required by the Revenue Commissioners in order to process any applicable taxation refund.

If you are not in a position to fully repay the overpayment within the 4-year timeframe above you will need to contact the office of the Revenue Commissioners, who may extend the timeframe in which you can submit a claim in respect of the overpayment.

If you have submitted appropriate documentation pertaining to a case that caused an overpayment, once these documents are in order and have been processed, an instruction will be sent to Payroll and any monies due to be returned to you will be refunded via your payslip without undue delay.