Burton: More welfare benefits for self-employed 'would be very difficult'

Tánaiste Joan Burton has said that greater access to welfare benefits for self-employed people on a voluntary basis would not work.

Currently, only state maternity and pensions benefits are available, but not other payments such as jobseekers allowance.

The Labour leader told the Dáil she has had several reports and expert groups looking at it - but allowing self-employed people to 'opt-in' would not really work.

"There really has to be a contribution because if its only on an 'opt-in' basis, instead of getting the general population you will in fact tend - for obvious reasons - to perhaps get the more risky element of the self-employed population, and that would mean it would be very difficult to fund it," she said.