Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 702: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason jobseeker's benefit is limited to nine months while illness benefit is perpetual; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1119/11]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The social welfare system is based on two quite different types of entitlement – a social insurance system for people who have paid sufficient PRSI contributions and a social assistance system for people without adequate contributions who have little or no household means of their own.

Social insurance is intended both to enable people to insure themselves against adverse life events such as illness or unemployment and to provide for their state pensions and other benefits, through contributions to the social insurance fund. Social insurance benefits are not means-tested. Instead, entitlement depends on having paid the required number of PRSI contributions relevant to the particular benefit being claimed.

Prior to the introduction of changes provided for in the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2008, there was no limit on the amount of time for which illness benefit could be paid to people who had more than 260 social insurance contributions as long as they were medically certified as being unfit for work . An OECD review entitled "Sickness, Disability and Work: Breaking the Barriers" noted that paying illness or sickness benefit without a time limitation was very unusual across the OECD, and pointed to the risk that people in such circumstances will never return to the labour market.

Against that background, the 2008 Act provided that entitlement to illness benefit is now limited to two years (or 624 days) duration for claims arising after the 5th January, 2009.

Also provided for in this Act was the reduction in the duration of the jobseeker's benefit payment. Firstly, the duration of the benefit payable to people with 260 or more paid social insurance contributions was reduced from 15 to 12 months, for (then) current claimants with less than six months duration on the scheme, as well as all new claimants. Similarly, where the claimant had less than 260 contributions the maximum duration of benefit was reduced from 12 to 9 months for people in receipt for less than three months, as well as all new claimants.