Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

As I pointed out, in actuarial terms self-employed people, because they only pay 3% PRSI compared to 14.75%, come out much better in the long term because the most expensive benefit which everybody is paying for are pensions, be they State, contributory or widows pensions. Therefore, if the system was reformed to give short term benefits there would be a number of practical difficulties and one would have to significantly increase the level of self-employed contributions to the approximate level of the employed contributions which is 14.75%. One could not have a situation where one person was getting a lot of benefits, having contributed 14.75%, and another was getting an equal set of benefits, having contributed 3%.

That is the dilemma in this case. I accept there are challenges in this situation, as I said in my answer to the question asked by Deputy Timmins. One very successful solution we found to the problem of self-employed people in receipt of farm assist was through the rural social scheme which gave one something akin to what a stamp would give one but it was done in such a way that the person was given time which reduced the possibility of abuse of the system. I assure the Deputy that I am working in that direction and I hope to make progress in the near future.

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