asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he is aware (1) that many able-bodied inmates of county homes are debarred from receiving unemployment assistance as they have been informed that they should live out of the home and have an outside address and sign on at the local employment exchange for a fortnight at the end of which period they would be entitled to benefit at the rate of 6/- per week, and that, at the end of twelve months if they still continued to live outside of the home, they would get the full amount to which they were entitled in accordance with the provisions of the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933; and, if so, if he proposes to introduce proposals for legislation to amend that Act in order to remove this disability so as to include within its provisions persons who are unable to maintain themselves outside these institutions in order to qualify for unemployment assistance.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Unemployment Assistance.
I do not know what information has been given to the class of persons described in the Deputy's question or by whom it has been given, but it is definitely laid down in the Unemployment Assistance Act that a person is disqualified for receiving unemployment assistance while he is an inmate of any institution maintained wholly or partly out of public moneys or by a local authority. I do not propose to take any steps to alter this disqualification. Persons entitled to receive unemployment assistance are paid for every period, after the first week, during which they prove in the prescribed manner that they have been continuously unemployed, that they fulfil the other statutory conditions and are free from statutory disqualification; and from the commencement of payment they are paid at the full rate to which they are entitled under the Act.