The Minister for Social Protection announced on Wednesday that recipients of the jobseeker's benefit will need to return to post offices to collect their payment.
Heather Humphreys said that returning jobseeker's payments to post offices will lead to additional footfall while it will also help to tackle fraud.
The social welfare benefit will need to be collected once again at post offices on a phased basis as a result of the easing of Covid restrictions.
The "exceptional measure" implemented at the outset of the pandemic for social welfare recipients to receive their money straight into their bank accounts will be phased out in the next few months.
New jobseeker's applicants will be impacted first, with existing claimants to get their payments from post offices in the coming months.
Minister Humphreys said there have been reports of people claiming jobseeker's while not living in Ireland.
She explained that a special unit continues to work to try and catch people carrying out social welfare fraud.
Some 120 officers work at the Special Investigation Unit which focuses on assessing and detecting social welfare fraud.
Included in this is 21 gardai whose roles are to investigate the more serious cases of welfare fraud and, specifically, people generally prosecuted under Criminal Justice legislation.
Since the Pandemic Unemployment Payment was introduced in March 2020, the unit has also broadened the scope of its role to include probes into this benefit.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Minister Humphreys said: “There are instances but the majority of people who get social welfare payments deserve it and deserve that support and I want to be very clear on that.
“But there are those who are trying to commit fraud in the system and that’s wrong.
“We have a special investigation unit and we continue to follow up on reports we get from the public and employers and also work very closely with the gardai and there have been quite a number of people caught claiming the benefits and we continue to pursue them and get the money back.”
Minister Humphreys has said there is an inter-departmental group working with postmasters on examining other options and services that people can avail of if their local post office has closed.
A report on the matter is due to come before the Government shortly, she said.
For those who are immunocompromised and may want to avoid crowded settings due to Covid-19, Minister Humphreys advised them to contact the office of social protection and officials will offer help.
