Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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Question 53: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs her plans to allow self-employed persons pay extra social insurance in order that they are covered for jobseeker's benefit in the event of unemployment. [9263/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The range of benefits and pensions to which different groups of workers may establish entitlement reflects the risks associated with the nature of their work. This in turn reflects the rate of contribution payable. Self-employed people are liable for PRSI at the Class S rate of 3% and are consequently eligible for a narrower range of benefits than general employees who, together with their employers, pay a total social insurance contribution of 14.05%, excluding levies, under the full-rate PRSI Class A. Self-employed workers are not insured against short-term benefits such as illness and jobseeker's payments — these are only available to persons covered by PRSI Classes A, E, H and P. This reflects the need for coverage for various contingencies, the rate of contributions that self-employed persons pay, the practicalities of administering and controlling access to short-term payments and the annualised system of contributions that these same persons enjoy. A system of separate arrangements for employed and self-employed workers within a social insurance context is common in other European social protection systems.

There are no immediate plans to extend cover for short-term benefits to this group of insured workers. Any such measure would have significant financial implications and would have to be considered within a budgetary context. Consideration would also have to be given to an appropriate increase in the rate of the PRSI Class S contribution. Self-employed workers who do not qualify for an insurance-based benefit may establish entitlement to assistance-based payments by satisfying certain conditions including a means test.