John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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79. To ask the Minister for Social Protection when local government employees reach the age of 65 and are required to retire and make application to her Department for jobseeker's allowance, if the obligation to make themselves available for work will be strictly imposed; if these persons will be means tested as per the usual procedure after the allotted nine months or so on the payment; her views on whether this is an economic use of funding; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [51151/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Where individuals exit the workforce prior to pension age they may seek the support of either the jobseeker’s benefit or jobseeker’s allowance schemes. Jobseeker's benefit is a weekly payment to people out of work and covered by social insurance. If a person does not qualify for jobseeker’s benefit they may qualify for means tested jobseeker's allowance. The Revised Estimates for my Department provides for expenditure on the jobseeker’s schemes of €3.66 billion in 2013.

Legislation provides that a person must satisfy the conditions of being available for and genuinely seeking work in order to be entitled to jobseeker’s benefit or jobseeker’s allowance. Any person who fails to satisfy these conditions is not entitled to a jobseeker’s payment. In most circumstances persons leaving local Government employment at age 65 will claim jobseeker’s benefit. It is provided that, subject to the person having paid 156 or more qualifying contributions and satisfying the general scheme conditions, a person whose jobseeker’s benefit expires in their 65th year will continue to be paid benefit up until the age of 66. On this basis, workers who suffer a substantial loss of employment at age 65 will generally be able to claim jobseeker’s benefit for the full year to age 66 provided they have paid at least 156 qualifying contributions.

In addition, people in receipt of a jobseeker's payment must engage with the Department's activation measures and can face sanctions if they fail to do so. From January 2014, these criteria will be eased for people aged 62 and over. They will still be able to avail voluntarily of an array of supports, which are available from the Department if they wish to return to work, training or education. However, sanctions will not be applied to this cohort, should they decide they do not wish to engage with the activation process.

Special arrangements will also be made so that the majority of older people in receipt of a jobseeker’s payment will have to register with their local office only once a year and their payments will be paid directly into their bank accounts. These provisions will enable these individuals to ease their transition into one of the jobseeker’s schemes until they become eligible for a State pension on their 66th birthday. Issues relating to the terms of employment of local Government employees are matters for my colleagues the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government and the Minister for Public Expenditure in the first instance.