Máire Hoctor (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)

I do not accept the amendment. The waiting days have been a feature of the illness benefit and jobseeker's payment schemes since their inception and are a feature of similar social security schemes in many countries. The application of a three-day waiting period avoids the disproportionately high administrative costs involved in processing large numbers of claims for a very short duration.

The waiting day rule is not applied in every case. Where a person is subject to intermittent spells of interruption of employment, clearly it would be unreasonable to impose the three waiting days for each benefit claim. In the case of illness benefit and jobseeker's benefit, spells of interruption of employment are aggregated so that the waiting period is confined to the first three days of the aggregate period, subject to the rules of linking.

Linking rules provide that any two periods of unemployment not separated by more than 26 weeks are treated as one claim and payment may be made from the first day of the later claim. The linking period for jobseeker's allowance is 52 weeks instead of 26 weeks. Linking rules apply in a variety of ways across schemes. Where a person claims illness benefit immediately following an unemployment benefit claim, for example, a person who has no other income is not left without support during waiting days. A person who has no other income may claim supplementary welfare allowance in respect of the days in question.