Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

The Department would have a view that is not desirable because the overhead in terms of trying to track people through on a voluntary basis is very significant as well as trying to match their benefits to what they get paid.

At the moment, self-employed people who paid PRSI certainly get a long-term payment that far outweighs the value of their contribution. In the short term, if their circumstances are such that they need to have access to jobseeker's allowance, for example, it has been found that approximately nine out of ten applicants who are self-employed are awarded jobseeker's allowance.