€87m to extend job seekers’ benefit to self-employed
Representatives from the Department of Social Protection said a KPMG report on the Social Insurance Fund found the cost of extending jobseekers’ benefit in 2013 to the self-employed would be in this range, assuming unemployment rates for self-employed people were the same as the for rest of the population.
The Social Protection Committee was told self-employed people who pay Class S PRSI are entitled to widow’s pension, guardian’s payment, State pension, maternity benefit, adoptive benefit and bereavement grant. If their income is below a certain level, they are entitled to jobseekers’ allowance based on a means test of earnings from the last 12 months.
However, Kevin ‘Jock’ McArdle of the Self Employed Alliance of Dundalk said assessing self-employed people on income rates possibly going back to 2010 was unfair given that income levels vary wildly.
“How much have we contributed in financial terms to our country through income tax, PAYE, PRSI, USC, RCT and VAT? And what is our reward if we find ourselves in a situation where we can no longer support ourselves?
“When we turn to the very system we have been paying most of our earnings in one form or another to, we are told we are not unemployed citizens but self-employed unemployed citizens. At social welfare offices we have been turned away because there are no benefits available and no recognition of self-employed unemployed workers,” he said.
Mr McArdle outlined 17 disadvantages faced by self-employed people trying to access the social welfare system, such as no entitlement to sick pay, pension cover, redundancy and, in most cases, jobseekers’ benefit.
A number of TDs criticised the “perverse” system and stated that in many local welfare offices, self-employed people were being told they were not entitled to job seekers’ allowance despite this being not the case.
Mary Kennedy of the Department of Social Protection said local welfare offices had to have some knowledge of income, but have been instructed to take the downward trend in the economy into account.
