Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Pringle for raising the matter. I wish to advise the Deputy that the Department has not made any changes recently to the arrangements that apply for seasonal workers who are in receipt of jobseeker's benefit and jobseeker's allowance.

I have been given a briefing note but, unfortunately, it does not cover the three items the Deputy has raised. In terms of having a meaningful engagement, I suggest that we sit down next week and go through the three items, namely, the scanning of the document, and the onerous amount of travel required for some people, subsidiary employment in the fishing industry, and the change in the jobseeker's benefit entitlement for part-time farmers.

Rather than giving the Deputy a stock answer, I would be happier to engage with him to examine the impact of what he is suggesting and see if we can alleviate it in some manner. I think that is the most constructive way, rather than delivering a set speech, and I would be happy to do that.

The recent changes, which were not related to this matter, were to facilitate people to return to work part-time without losing benefits. If they went back to work, it was, therefore, easy to transfer back onto jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance without a prolonged delay for the money to come through.

The matters raised by the Deputy are particularly related to the fishing industry, small farmers and scanning documents. I will be happy to work through those three items with him next week, if that is suitable.

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