Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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403. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason for such strict regulation to avail of unemployment benefits based on a contributions record from another EU country in view of having to have at least one week's insurable work here; and the options there are or the assistance available to a family if no insurable work is available. [41040/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The jobseeker's benefit and jobseeker’s allowance schemes provide income support for people who have lost work and are unable to find alternative full-time employment. The Revised Estimates for the Department provide for expenditure on the jobseeker’s schemes of €3.66 billion in 2013. The social security rights of workers and their families moving within the EU are dealt with by EU regulations on the coordination of social security systems. These regulations deal with a wide range of issues including the jurisdiction in which people should pay social insurance, the aggregation of contributions made in other Member States, liability for payment of benefits and in the case of pensions, how those benefits are calculated. The competent Member State for insurance and benefits is decided on the basis of a priority list starting with employment and ending with residence.

In relation to jobseeker’s benefit the regulations provide that eligibility for benefit is dependent on the person’s most recent social insurance contributions being made in the competent Member State. Accordingly, a person must make their last contribution here before being eligible for benefit. They can, of course, count contributions made in other Member States towards qualification once their last contribution has been paid in this jurisdiction. Any person who is involuntarily unemployed and fails to qualify for jobseeker’s benefit may claim jobseeker’s allowance which is subject, inter alia, to a means test and a habitual residence condition.