Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Regardless of the time of year, people on jobseeker schemes should not have any concern about taking up temporary work for fear of delays in getting back into payment when the jobs are finished.

In cases where a jobseeker customer takes up temporary work for a short period or avails of a short-term training course, arrangements are in place to suspend temporarily the claim so that it can be reinstated without delay when the work or training finishes. Effectively, the jobseeker's claim is kept open while the person works, although the payment is obviously stopped for the period. This temporary suspension, which was originally set at a maximum of four weeks, was increased to eight weeks in 2012 and in March 2013 it was further extended to 26 weeks for educational sector workers. The arrangements are put in place once the customer notifies the Intreo social welfare local office of an offer of temporary work.

In the 11 months from January to November 2013, the temporary suspension has been used on 49,000 occasions. This compares with less than 14,600 in 2012. Even where a person does not avail of these special arrangements, payment can be reinstated within a very short timeframe. For example, in November 2013, almost 35% of all jobseeker claims were awarded on the day the application was received, and these are cases where the special provisions for periods of temporary work were not availed of by the customer. In summary, if a person on a jobseeker's payment gets an offer of a job for up to eight weeks or gets a chance to go on a training course, they should give the details to their Intreo social welfare local office as soon as possible. The office will be glad to make the arrangements to fast track the claim back into payment when the time arrives.

Although the arrangements for temporary suspension of claims are in place all year round, the Minister recently issued a reminder of the arrangements to all Members of the Oireachtas in view of the increase in opportunities for temporary work at this time of year. The Department constantly reviews its operational procedures to ensure the best possible service for its customers. If the Deputy has a particular case in mind where payment has been delayed unnecessarily, the Minister will be glad to have the case examined by the Department on receiving details from him.

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