Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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72. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans to reform illness benefit entitlements for self-employed persons; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58968/22]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I am taking this on behalf of Deputy McAuliffe. What are the Minister's plans to reform illness benefit entitlements for self-employed people?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Illness benefit is the primary short-term income support provided by my Department to those who are unable to work due to illness of any type and who are covered by social insurance. Eligibility for illness benefit depends on the person’s PRSI record and class. People must have made the required number of contributions in class A, E, H or P to qualify.

In general, self-employed people make PRSI contributions at class S, which does not count towards eligibility for illness benefit. I am not considering changing this rule. However, self-employed contributors who cannot work due to an illness or a disability may apply for disability allowance, a means-tested social assistance payment, or invalidity pension, a social insurance payment. Illness benefit is funded by the Social Insurance Fund through PRSI contributions. The fund is central to our social protection system and the Government needs to ensure that it can provide adequate and sustainable social insurance pensions and benefits for a growing and aging population. Self-employed people pay contributions to the fund at a lower rate of 4%. This is 11% lower than the combined employer and employee contribution of 15.05% made in respect of employed contributors. However, self-employed contributors have access to over 90% of benefits available to employed contributors.

These include: adoptive benefit; guardian's contributory payment; invalidity pension; jobseeker's benefit for the self-employed; maternity benefit; parent's benefit; partial capacity benefit where in receipt of invalidity pension; paternity benefit; the State contributory pension; treatment benefit; and widows, widower's or surviving civil partner's contributory pension. The only benefits that class S PRSI do not provide access to are carer's benefit, health and safety benefit, illness benefit, and occupational injuries benefits.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for her clear answer. She has made the point well. Since the introduction of the changes the Minister and others in the Department have made on the class S contributions being applicable to the invalidity pension, how many self-employed people have benefited and been able to get the invalidity pension? The difficulty for self-employed people is there is no mechanism for them to secure the job if they have a permanent illness. It might be interesting for us to have the figures on how many people qualified for the invalidity pension from the S class contributions since the changes were made by the Minister and others in the Department.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I will have to ask if I can get the figures for the Deputy. I am happy to do that. Did he say he wants to know how many qualified for the invalidity pension?

Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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That is right, yes.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I will see if I can get the figures and I will send them to the Deputy.

To be fair, we have made a significant number of changes for the self-employed in the past six or seven years or more. I remember when self-employed people got nothing. We have made a lot of progress in that regard. They now receive more than 90% of the other benefits when they pay their PRSI. They pay 4% in total, which is fair enough, but if we are to give them more benefits, we will have to have a conversation about increasing PRSI. I want to be straight about that. There is no point in looking at it other than as part of a conversation on increased rates of PRSI.