Marie Moloney (Labour)
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The witness said that a self-employed person qualifies for jobseeker's allowance if his or her employment ceases. For many, the employment does not cease. For example, a plumber or carpenter may get a call for a day's work to fix a leak or whatever is wrong with a house. That person may get a few hours work or a day's work now and again. In that case, their employment would not have ceased. Perhaps we could have a scheme similar to farm assist where people could work for a few hours and draw unemployment payment for the hours they are not working. While we say jobseeker's allowance is available, I note that only 20,000 have availed of it. We look at the 85% but that is 85% of what? We are not talking about 85% of the self-employed in Ireland but 85% of those who applied, which is about 20,000. There are a couple of hundred thousand of self-employed persons in the country.

Like Deputy Ó Snodaigh, I am aware of a case of a man who has leukaemia and cannot work. His wife works and her income exceeds the amount he would receive on jobseeker's allowance. They are struggling because they have a mortgage and bills to pay. Sometimes benefit is far more beneficial to the person than an allowance as it is not means tested and would get him over the hump while they are in difficulty. A short-term payment can help one at a time of a short-term problem, but I am not saying that leukaemia is a short-term problem. If a person is ill for a few weeks or a few months, it gets them over a hump. Jobseeker's allowance is not the answer for all the self-employed, especially if one has a working spouse as that income will be taken into account and that person will left without anything.