Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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49. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of applicants for jobseeker’s benefit in 2020 that were ruled ineligible for not having had either 39 weeks of contributions in the past year or 26 weeks in each of the two proceeding years but that did have 156 weeks of contributions since they first started working. [19022/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Information is not available on the number of applicants for Jobseekers Benefit in 2020 who did not meet all of the contribution conditions for eligibility for the scheme. This information is not collated.

A person who is unemployed, available for and genuinely seeking work may be eligible for Jobseekers Benefit if they meet two contributions conditions.  The first is to have a record of Total Contributions Paid of at least 104 reckonable contributions since they entered insurable employment.  These should have been payable at Classes A, H and P (or the equivalent rates before April 1979) oralternatively156 Class S contributions.  The purpose of this condition is to ensure a substantial history of attachment to the labour force.

I wish to point out that Budget 2019 introduced additional eligibility criteria for Jobseeker’s Benefit where the first contribution condition has been amended to include Class S (self-employment) contributions.

The second condition which ensures a recent attachment to the labour force is that the person must have a record of 39 contributions paid in the previous year or 26 contributions in each of the two preceding years. 

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.