Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 36: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if her attention has been drawn to the difficulties being experienced by people who had been on low wages and who are not entitled to a full rate jobseeker's benefit or illness benefit as a result of SI 604 of 2008; if the impact of the new reduced rate qualifying thresholds will be the subject of a review in term of its impact on poverty and hardship; and her plans to introduce amending regulations to lessen the impact on low paid workers. [9284/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Full social insurance cover was extended to part-time workers from April 1991. At that time a range of measures were introduced to ensure that the rate of Illness Benefit and jobseeker's Benefit payable would be proportionate to the persons income and PRSI contributions. They were also intended to ensure that disincentives to employment were not created. In the absence of these measures, a situation would exist whereby many workers on low incomes would have access to weekly social welfare payments in excess of their income from employment.

These measures are regularly updated to keep pace with rises in benefit levels. Budget 2003 sought to bring the income threshold and banding structure back into line with the level of benefits payable. However, with the increases in benefits that have been provided since then, these thresholds and related bands had again gone seriously out of line with the associated rates of benefit. For example, an employee who earned €150.00 per week in 2004 qualified for a personal rate of payment of €134.80. In 2008, this payment had increased to €197.80 for the same level of earnings. At these levels, the weekly income threshold and graduated Illness and Jobseeker's Benefit rates represented a serious disincentive to employment.

The new thresholds that were introduced in January will address these disincentive effects by completing the process of bringing the income thresholds and banding structure back into line with the benefits payable.

A person in receipt of a reduced rate Illness or Jobseeker's Benefit payment which is insufficient to meet their needs, may, be eligible for a top-up under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme subject to a means test. Recipients of Jobseeker's Benefit may opt to transfer to means tested Jobseeker's Allowance.