Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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120. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will cease the policy of penalising unemployed persons from taking up casual work and allow them to sign off from days they are working; if she will further cease the penalising of small businesses trying to hire person casually and remove the disincentives whereby a volume of unnecessary paperwork and responsibility is in the existing process of casual hire; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41708/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The jobseeker’s schemes provide income support for people who are seeking their first job or have lost work and are seeking alternative employment. A fundamental qualifying condition for both the jobseeker’s benefit and jobseeker’s allowance is that a person must be available for full-time work.

Where a person is employed for up to three days in a week, they may claim a jobseeker’s payment in respect of the remainder of the week, subject to scheme conditionality. Under this system the schemes support over 70,000 persons engaged in casual or part-time work. There are no plans to change the operation of the schemes in this regard.

It may also be noted that if a person signs off from the schemes to take up work for a short period or to go on a short training course, there is now a fast track system in place to ensure they are able to make this transition in an easy and efficient manner. This fast track system allows the individual to quickly sign back on their jobseeker’s scheme and then continue to receive benefits after the work or course finishes.

In relation to employers every effort is made to minimise the impact of necessary administrative procedures associated with the schemes which, it may be noted, provide a substantial support to the functioning of the labour market.