David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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629. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if a person is employed on a part-time basis but does not have entitlement for jobseeker's allowance due to the fact they are working four days per week can be paid part-time job incentive in circumstances in which the person is refused jobseeker's allowance. [1209/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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To qualify for a jobseeker’s payment a person must meet the conditionality for the schemes which include that you must be available for and genuinely seeking work and unemployed for at least 4 days out of 7 consecutive days. Any change to the 4 in 7 rule while potentially incentivising part time employment would reduce the incentive to progress off welfare and into full time employment.

Both the Jobseeker’s Benefit and the Jobseeker’s Allowance schemes provide significant support to individuals so that they can work up to 3 days a week. The Department through the Family Income Supplement also supports families with children who work at least 19 hrs per week. The combination of these schemes provides effective and considerable support for individuals.

To qualify for the part-time job incentive scheme a person must be in receipt of jobseeker's allowance for at least 390 days. In addition, a person must have been in receipt of a higher jobseeker's payment rate than the appropriate part-time job incentive supplement payable. The part-time job incentive supplement rate is €119 per week for a single person and €193.90 per week where an individual was getting an increase for a qualified adult. There is no increase for qualified children. Participants on the scheme are expected to continue to make efforts to find full-time work.

There are currently no plans to change the qualifying criteria for the part-time job incentive scheme but any proposed changes would have to be considered in a budgetary context and take into account potential behavioural changes by employees and employers and the wider labour market impact.