Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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538. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her views on correspondence (details supplied) regarding social welfare payments to young persons. [13808/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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An unemployed person may qualify for jobseeker’s benefit or jobseeker’s allowance. Jobseeker’s benefit is based on a person’s social insurance record and jobseeker’s allowance is based on weekly means. A fundamental qualifying condition for a jobseeker’s payment is that a person must be available for and genuinely seeking full-time work.

To be eligible for jobseekers allowance, which may be payable in circumstances where a person resides with a parent or step-parent, an applicant must be over eighteen and under sixty-six years of age.

In the case of persons aged under 25 years of age, the means test for jobseeker’s allowance takes account of the value of any benefit and privilege enjoyed by a claimant as a result of residing with a parent or step-parent. The calculation of such value is based on the level of net parental income.

There are currently no plans to alter these arrangements within the jobseeker’s allowance scheme.