Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Are the figures quoted for the PRSI increases just to cover pay-related jobseeker's benefit, or are they general increases to fund the Social Insurance Fund, SIF?

My understanding is that there were general increases taking place. It goes into a big maw and then you pay all the benefits.

I also note that there is no pay-related element: that the self-employed are the poor relation. If one's income disappears when one is self-employed, one does not get any pay-related benefit, even though it is easy enough nowadays to ascertain information from previous years, such as income tax returns and how much income a person is getting. Ms Harrington might go into that.

Does the Department get access in real time to pay records from Revenue? Every time an employer makes a payment to an employee there must be a return to Revenue in real time. It is not like the old days when you put in a P35 at the end of the year and that was the first inkling they had of the individual pay rates. Now they get it every week, fortnight, or month, according to whatever pay regime a person is on. Will the Department have access to that so that quick decisions can be made?

The next question is one I think the Chair will be equally interested in, given that, like me, he represents a rural constituency with a lot of small farmers. I recently had an application for jobseeker's benefit. It related to jobseeker's benefit for someone aged between 65 and 66, but the rules are the same. In my experience we always had the situation that if you had a job and you were earning €30,000, €40,000 or €50,000 a year and you had a farm that was earning anywhere between nought and a few thousand euro, as you became unemployed you got jobseeker's benefit because they knew you could not live off the farm, and that it was totally subsidiary. Recently, I had a case of a farmer who in three years made €900 out of his farm. He has accounts done up professionally to prove that. The answer I got to a general question asked on foot of the fact that the 65-year old person was refused jobseeker's benefit was that it was on the basis that the person was farming. The answer was quite startling, as this would affect a mega amount of small farmers, particularly in the west.

I asked:

the Minister for Social Protection whether people who were employed for many years and were farming in a very small way at the same time [In this case the person got an illness benefit but that relates to another question.] and then went on illness benefit for a year and a half, are entitled to job seeker's benefit on recovery from the illness affecting them, subject to the normal conditions; and if not the reason they are not entitled to it; and if she will make a statement on the matter.

The reply stated:

A person is not regarded as being unemployed for Jobseeker's Benefit purposes, for any day that they are actively engaged in farming.

If the person is still engaged in farming, they may be entitled to receive Farm Assist [but this person had a working spouse] subject to satisfying the normal conditions for the payment.

I trust this clarifies the position for the Deputy.

This was news to me because I have been dealing with this not for 30 years but 50 years, since I effectively became an employer at 23 years of age, as a manager of a small co-operative. We had people in and out because the work could be quite seasonal. The small farmers always got jobseeker's benefit, as long as farming was not the main income. I think we need clarification on that. It is a fairly serious issue and one that is relevant to this Bill.

The next question I have is whether the normal rates of adult and child dependant allowances are paid on the pay-related jobseeker's benefit? Is it an enhanced rate or at the standard rate or what is the arrangement? I totally support the Chair. I think the rates should be the same. In other words, when it is 55% or whatever it is, it is not really 55%.

Could Ms Harrington give us the percentage of people on unemployment benefit whose income exceeds the maximum threshold income? In other words, if they are getting the maximum rate on the first round and therefore on the second round, and so on. She might tell us what percentage of people going on jobseeker's benefit will qualify for the maximum rate and will not get the full pay-related benefit because they are going to be over the maximum? I think that figure would be very relevant to us because it would give us some sense of how many people will be caught by the point the Chair raised.

If somebody was on illness benefit, which can happen, and the employer then decided to make the person redundant, I presume the fact that the person was not working in the previous weeks because they were on illness benefit will not preclude them from going on the pay-related jobseeker's benefit. Ms Harrington might clarify that. Otherwise, it would be a lucky dip. One could be out with any form of an illness. I am not talking about invalidity, I am talking about illness benefit.

I have a bit of a hang-up with the emphasis on activation. I think forced activation results in people just going through the motions. I believe you can bring the horse to water but you cannot make the horse drink. Officialdom and the media have always suspected that there are a whole lot of people out there who do not want to be engaged. My experience of life is that if the engagement is real, the vast majority of people who become unemployed, who are anxious to get back into employment, become engaged with activation in a positive sense. My view is that there is some issue with those who might not do so and it would be better to investigate it rather than taking a penal attitude to it.

I am sorry for all the questions but this is an important subject. These are Bills and the arrangements will become permanent. If we take an employer who works five days a week and he puts his workforce on a three-day week or a two-day week or whatever else, will the employees get pay-related jobseeker's benefit and how is it going to be calculated or would they just go on the flat rate of unemployment benefit for the days they are off? It is important to clarify that. They are my questions.