Mr. Ian Martin:

I have been suggesting a voluntary system of PRSI for quite some time and did so last week at a meeting of the AGSB, the Advisory Group for Small Business.

The Minister, Deputy Bruton, and the Minister of State, Deputy Perry, were in attendance. We put forward two proposals. An unemployed person will qualify for some type of social welfare payment under the jobseeker's allowance but such people will need to be on their uppers in order to qualify and they will be out of business. The problem is that if a person's business goes wallop and he or she owns an apartment or a premises which is not income-earning, a total of 4% of the value of that property is regarded as income. For example, the owner of a property worth €200,000, will be deemed to have an annual income of €8,000 which means he or she will not then qualify for the jobseeker's allowance. We are looking for that barrier to be removed for the time being in order to help people.

Our second proposal is that an employee working for a company which ceases to trade who then sets up his or her own business in that trade, for example, will immediately lose the 30 years of social welfare benefits as an employee. We propose that after receiving the dole for three months, the other nine months is parked for a period of five years. It is known that businesses if not successful will fail within the first five years and at least there will be a little kitty available to fall back on.