Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

It is a very good question and was the first one on which I asked for absolute clarity when I came into the Department. I have answered numerous parliamentary questions on this but I am delighted to have an opportunity once again to clarify it. A person whose income drops beneath the threshold of the family circumstances - for a single person over 25 years of age, that would be €196 - is immediately entitled to jobseeker's allowance.

As a matter of form, the Department often asks for the previous year's accounts but that is only as a guide. If a person had a contract to deliver bread, was self-employed and owned the van and the contract finished and a replacement contract was not put in place, the fact he or she had made a lot of money in the previous year would mean nothing because as long as he or she could satisfy the officials that he or she had no current income nor likely prospect of income in the immediate future, he or she could immediately get jobseeker's allowance.

Time and again, we have reinforced this message and I am delighted to be able to do so again on the record. We have also ensured that the officials in the Department are absolutely clear on the guidelines in this regard. There is a safety net.

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