asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether he is aware that according to the custom followed at the Sligo Unemployment Exchange persons unemployed must sign on six consecutive days in order to obtain payment of benefit; that dock labourers at Sligo are usually unemployed for four or five days at a time, when they then may get two or three days' employment discharging boats, and upon again becoming unemployed they are called upon to make what is called a "repeated" claim in respect of the days they previously signed for, necessitating awaiting payment of benefit for a further period of six days, and whether the Minister will, in view of the hardships inflicted upon the working classes in this connection, remedy this condition of affairs and so amend procedure that unemployed persons will draw the benefit to which they are entitled whether they be signing for one, two or more days.
CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - SLIGO UNEMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE.
The Unemployment Fund was established to provide for unemployment that is continuous after six days total unemployment. It is an insurance fund, and consequently subject, like all insurance funds, to compliance with such conditions as actuarial considerations may require. Workers are not entitled, as the Deputy assumes, to benefit if they do not comply with the conditions under which benefit is payable. The procedure described in the question is that laid down by the Unemployment Insurance Acts and could not be altered without legislation, which, having regard to the present state of the Fund, would involve an increase in the existing rate of contributions that I do not consider would be justifiable.
Is the Minister aware that there is a weekly service of boats from Sligo, and that the men are only employed for one day in the week— they sign on for five days, and perhaps on the sixth they get half a day, or one day's work, and are then out of benefit?
I am aware of that—that is the law.
Will the Minister consider the desirability of amending the Act so as not to penalise men for taking even one day's employment when it is offered to them, as there is a direct encouragement in the present conditions to men to remain idle?
I am ready to consider an amendment of the law with an increase in the amount which has to be deducted from wages.