asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether he will give the reasons for debarring certain employees of Messrs. Ensor's Salvage Works at Cobh, Co. Cork, from receiving unemployment insurance benefit; if he is aware that those men were engaged during a period extending over the past few years on salvage work off the coast of Scotland and domiciled continuously aboard a salvage boat and had their unemployment insurance cards regularly stamped with Saorstát unemployment stamps.
CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE CLAIMS (COBH).
Claims to unemployment benefit lodged by certain workmen who were employed by Messrs. Thomas Ensor and Son, Salvage Contractors, Cobh, on salvage work off the coast of Scotland, have been disallowed on the ground that they are disqualified for the receipt of benefit by the first part of Section 8 (4) of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920, which is as follows:—
"Where no contributions are paid in respect of any person during any insurance year, he shall, unless the non-payment of contributions was due to his being sick, be disqualified for receiving unemployment benefit until 12 contributions, exclusive of any contributions paid in respect of him before that year, have been paid in respect of him under this Act ....."
The ship or vessel on which these men were employed is registered in Great Britain, and unemployment insurance contributions were not payable in respect of such employment under the Unemployment Insurance Acts of this country for this reason: that ships or vessels registered in Great Britain are subject not to the Unemployment Insurance Acts of this country, but to British Unemployment Insurance Acts. Similarly, ships or vessels registered in this country are subject to the Unemployment Insurance Acts of this country, and not to British Unemployment Insurance Acts.
I am aware that in the cases to which the Deputy refers, unemployment insurance contributions were, in fact, paid by means of unemployment insurance stamps purchased in the Free State, but as such contributions were not legally payable under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, they cannot be regarded, or taken into account in determining claims to benefit, as valid contributions under the Acts. A claim for a refund of their value may, however, be made on the ground that they were paid in the erroneous belief that they were legally payable. I am advised that no contributions were payable by these men even under the British Unemployment Insurance Acts, for the reason that they were persons domiciled in this country, but the employer was liable to pay to a special Seamen's Fund his share of the unemployment insurance contributions that would have been payable for these men had they been persons domiciled in Great Britain.
Messrs. Ensor could bring the persons employed on their ships within the provisions of the Insurance Acts operative in this country by transferring the registration of those ships from Great Britain to the Free State, a simple process involving a trifling expense.