Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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2045. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the estimated full year cost of extending jobseeker's benefit to the self employed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28046/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for a Partnership Government commits to seeking “to introduce a PRSI scheme for the self-employed and provide a supportive tax regime for entrepreneurs and the self-employed”. This has been one of my key priorities since becoming Minister in this Department. Last Budget Day, I was pleased to extend the level of cover available to self-employed PRSI contributors. Self-employed contributors now have access to treatment benefits since last March and will have access to invalidity pension next December. This is a real advance in the level of cover available to the self-employed.

It is planned to continue extending cover for other benefits to the self-employed on a phased basis in future Budgets. In 2017, my Department will examine the extension of social insurance to cover new risks and contingencies, including developing proposals on a form of jobseeker’s benefit where a person's business fails or they can no longer continue working in their profession or trade.

An Actuarial Review of Social Insurance Fund as at 31 December 2015 is currently underway. One of the issues being examined by the independent consultants undertaking the Review is the potential costs in future years of extending cover for jobseeker’s benefit to self-employed contributors including the projected PRSI contribution rates which would be required to extend such cover on a revenue neutral basis. It is planned to publish the completed review next August.

The outcome of the review, including the potential costs associated with further extensions of benefits to the self-employed, will feed into the examination being carried out by my Department on extending access to jobseeker’s benefit, in particular.

The Review generally will project the income and expenditure of the Fund over a 55 year period, taking into account policy, economic and demographic changes since the previous review was undertaken. It will also, for example, project the costs of various options for the indexation of benefits and pensions such as indexation to earnings or prices. The findings of the Review will play an important role in informing the debate on policy developments in relation to the Social Insurance Fund in the years ahead including the financial sustainability of the Fund given the expected demographic challenges.