Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Self-employed people have acknowledged that the Minister is making inroads and some significant improvements, which are very welcome. To have invalidity pension coming in from December and the extension of ancillary benefits, such as dental and optical benefits, coming in from March is very welcome. However, the two big bugbears for the self-employed are in regard to illness benefit and jobseeker's benefit. Basically, the social welfare system tells them to pay their class S contributions but they must never get ill or become unemployed, which is incongruous to say the least.

The self-employed are working from when they get out of bed until they go to bed at night. They are great people who keep this country going. They are also tax collectors but they get no benefit from that, although they have to pay accountants and everybody else. Nobody does more, and nobody did more during the recession, to keep this country going than the self-employed. However, nobody was more disdainfully treated within the social welfare system than the self-employed. They were treated like beggars in their first encounter with the social welfare system, when they were asked to account for their income for the last year. It was like being asked where was the snow that came last January. It was a nonsense. The former Minister, Deputy Burton, eventually changed that. I was very angry about it as I come from a self-employed background myself. There is nothing in it for people except to keep paying and keep complying, but get nothing.

Illness benefit and jobseeker's benefit are critical in order to deal with the issue of the self-employed. These people actually get ill more often than anybody else because of the nature of the work they are exposed to.

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