Brian Walsh (Galway West, Independent)
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166. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if a person currently working three days and receiving a proportionately reduced rate of unemployment assistance is permitted to increase their employment to four days per week with a further pro-rata reduction in unemployment assistance; her plans to change the rules to allow such an arrangement. [42947/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The jobseeker's benefit and jobseeker’s allowance schemes provide income support for people who have lost work and are unable to find alternative full-time employment. The 2014 Estimates for the Department provide for expenditure this year on the jobseekers’ schemes of €3.28 billion.

It is a fundamental qualifying condition of both schemes that a person must be fully unemployed for four in any period of seven consecutive days, so a person working four days a week will not qualify.

It is recognised that a changing labour market has resulted in a move away from the more traditional work patterns, resulting in an increase in the number of persons employed for less than a full week. This is an important policy issue for the Department but any changes to the current criteria could have significant cost implications for the jobseekers’ schemes

The Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare has examined the issue of the interaction of the tax and social welfare systems to determine how the social welfare system can best achieve its goals of supporting persons through periods of involuntary unemployment while incentivising work and disincentivising welfare dependency. I am currently considering the report of the Group.