Parliamentary Question addressed to the Minister for Social Protection

The jobseeker’s benefit and jobseeker’s allowance schemes provide income support for people who have lost work and are unable to find alternative full-time employment.  The 2014 Estimates for the Department provide for expenditure this year on the jobseekers’ schemes of €3.28 billion.      

It is a fundamental qualifying condition of both schemes that a person must be fully unemployed for four in any period of seven consecutive days, so a person working any period of time five days a week will not qualify.    

It is recognised that a changing labour market has resulted in a move away from the more traditional work patterns, resulting in an increase in the number of persons employed for less than a full week.  This is an important policy issue for the Department but any changes to the current criteria could have significant cost implications for the jobseekers’ schemes  

I established the Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare in 2011 to harness expert opinion and experience to address a number of specific issues around the interaction of the tax and social protection systems. I have asked the Advisory Group to recommend cost-effective solutions as to how employment incentives can be improved.

 

The Advisory Group is currently undertaking its final module of work on the issue of the interaction of the tax and social welfare systems to determine how the social welfare system can best achieve its goals of supporting persons through periods of involuntary unemployment while incentivising work and disincentivising welfare dependency. The Group will report to me once their examination of the various issues has been completed.