Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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402. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reason a person (details supplied) in Dublin 12 is being denied his jobseeker's allowance [3964/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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One of the continuous conditions for payment of jobseeker’s allowance is that a person must be available for and genuinely seeking employment, and this is periodically reviewed. The person concerned was in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance from July 2010 and attended his Social Welfare Local Office for a review interview in July 2013, at which he was asked to produce documentary evidence of his efforts to find work. During this interview, he disclosed that he had been attending a full-time training course from October 2012 to May 2013, and that he had failed to notify my Department of this change of circumstances. In addition he was unable to provide sufficient documentary evidence to show that they had been genuinely seeking employment, and as a result his claim for jobseeker’s allowance was disallowed.

The person concerned has appealed this decision to the Social Welfare Appeals Office, and was awarded supplementary welfare allowance for a period pending the outcome of his appeal. It is also a condition for receiving supplementary welfare allowance that a person must be genuinely seeking employment, and his claim was similarly reviewed by his Community Welfare Officer in January 2014. Again the person concerned did not furnish sufficient documentary evidence of his efforts to find work, and as a result, his claim for supplementary welfare allowance was also disallowed.

We are currently awaiting the outcome of his appeal from the Social Welfare Appeals Office. Should he submit further documentary evidence to my Department to sufficiently prove that he is genuinely seeking employment, his entitlement to jobseeker’s allowance will be reviewed.