Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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63. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons in each of the past three years who requested to sign on for credits but were not allowed do so; if she will provide the reasons this happens and review the situation as these persons are not considered as existing even for the live register purposes and are not entitled to attend any community employment scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33171/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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PRSI credited contributions ("credits") are an integral part of the social insurance system. For the most part they are linked to having an underlying entitlement to a social welfare payment while temporarily detached from the labour force or having entitlement to statutory leave e.g. parental or maternity leave. The primary purpose of PRSI credits is to secure social welfare benefits and pensions of employees by covering gaps in insurance where they are not in a position to pay PRSI such as during periods of unemployment, illness, etc.

In order to qualify for credits, a person must first have entered insurable employment - he or she must have paid at least one PRSI contribution as an employed contributor. Subsequently, insured workers may be awarded credits if they claim a social welfare payment because they are out of work, or they are ill or incapacitated, or if they are engaged in certain training or educational courses. If at any stage in their working life, a person has no PRSI paid or credited contributions for two full tax years, they cannot be awarded credits again until they return to work and pay PRSI contributions for at least 26 weeks. Statistics are not collected in respect of the number of persons who do not qualify for credits.

With regard to the Live Register it should be noted that the register is not designed to measure unemployment. It includes part-time workers (those who work up to 3 days a week), seasonal and casual workers entitled to jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance. Unemployment is measured officially by the Central Statistics Office's Quarterly National Household Survey. A person is unemployed if, in the week before the survey, they were without work and available for work within the next 2 weeks.

Persons in receipt of qualifying social welfare payments have access to the full range of activation measures available through the State. Given the scale of unemployment levels, the key objective of activation policy and labour market initiatives is to offer assistance to those most in need of support in securing work and achieving financial self-sufficiency. This policy objective prioritises scarce resources to those in receipt of qualifying welfare payments. Accordingly the employment services and schemes provided by the Department, such as Community Employment, are focused in the first instance on this cohort of unemployed people. However, many services are available to persons who are not in receipt of a social welfare payment or qualifying for credits.