Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising the important issue of the self-employed. This is a real priority for me, having been self-employed myself. My dad and my grandad were too. I always said if I was ever in this position, I would try to do something about it. Sometimes, though, self-employed people are unaware of what they are entitled to. I hear self-employed people all the time saying they pay class S PRSI and get nothing. To put on the record what self-employed people do get, they get the contributory State pension, in addition to any other pensions they may have, with no means test. If one had to raise that money oneself, one would need a pension fund of €350,000. They also get maternity benefit and, since last September, paternity benefit. If they die before they retire, the widow, widower or survivor gets a non-means-tested pension too. Therefore, they already get quite a lot. I am adding to this the treatment benefits and long-term illness benefits, which is the invalidity pension this year. That only leaves two payments, namely, short-term illness benefit and jobseeker's benefit, and we need to do a bit of work on them, quite frankly. It is very straightforward when an employee loses his or her job: he or she gets a P45. It is less clear when this happens in the case of somebody who is self-employed. Similarly, when it comes to illness, when one is paid on an hourly basis, it is pretty easy to work out these things. If one is a barrister, or a doctor for that matter, and gets paid in lumps, questions arise as to which lump he or she was sick for and how much must be paid.

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