Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As initiated, the section required an individual to be unemployed for a period of 15 months before starting his or her own business. While this is the definition of long-term unemployment in the Social Welfare Acts, in practice a period of 12 months is generally applied. To be in keeping with initiatives by the Department of Social Protection on activating the long-term unemployed, it is proposed to reduce the qualifying period for the scheme to 12 months of unemployment. Individuals who are in receipt of partial capacity payments were not originally included on the list of individuals who would qualify for this scheme, although they can equally be long-term unemployed and can benefit from other activation measures. It is, therefore, proposed to include individuals in receipt of this payment within the initiative. Individuals who have been unemployed for a period of 12 months will be able to claim the relief. Individuals who can qualify are those in receipt of jobseeker's allowance, jobseeker's benefit, the one-parent family payment and partial capacity payments. Where an individual who would otherwise qualify attends a training course akin to a FÁS course, the period of training will also count towards his or her period of unemployment.

I ask Deputy Doherty to repeat his question on credit contributions, as I did not quite grasp the point.