Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Within our own party this issue has been raised consistently by my colleague from Donegal, Deputy Pat The Cope Gallagher, and he has given us a very good briefing on the situation. It is a problem that particularly affects, but is not exclusive to, Donegal. We put down an amendment on Committee Stage seeking what is being sought here, namely, a report, a study on the situation. It is clearly unsatisfactory and there are a number of possible solutions. The purpose of putting down an amendment was to get the Minister to do a report so that we could look at the solutions and hopefully advise him on the best one to adopt. I did not get a chance to check the record this morning but my recollection is that the Minister gave an undertaking on Committee Stage that he would carry out a study of this problem and report back promptly and I would like him to reiterate that today.

There is a real problem. In the current system, for part-time and seasonal workers to qualify for jobseeker's benefit they have to have paid 117 contributions over a three-year period. This equates to 39 contributions per annum, which is nearly impossible to achieve with seasonal work. If subsidiary income of a part-time farmer or fisherman exceeds €12.70 per day, €63.50 per week, they are not entitled to jobseeker's benefit. Clearly that is wrong and out of sync. It probably relates to jobseeker's benefit paid on the basis of hours worked, rather than three days or fewer per week. The other difficulty with the present situation is that when one social welfare claim ceases a person has to make 13 contributions to get back into the system again, which is not appropriate for people who do seasonal work.

This is having a very real impact on many people in County Donegal and elsewhere. It is also creating skill shortages for employers who need this type of worker. If it is going to make people worse off, they will not work in these businesses. I would like the Minister to reiterate his commitment to have a study carried out in order that we can consider it at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection to recommend some humane solutions that would bring a degree of fairness and equity into the system.

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