Vol. 158 No. 1
I move:—
That the draft of the Social Welfare (Modification of Contribution Conditions for Benefit) Regulations, 1956, sanctioned by the Minister for Finance and laid before Dáil Éireann on the 8th day of June, 1956, pursuant to sub-section (4) of Section 14 of the Social Welfare Act, 1952 (No. 11 of 1952), be approved before the regulations are made by the Minister for Social Welfare.
I am not at all clear on what the Minister has in mind. I am clear on the change being made in the number of credits from 50 to 48. I fail, however, to understand why there could not be 52 weeks, when taking the credited weeks into account. A man must be either ill or unemployed if he is not at work.
Deputy Dr. Ryan agreed with me in June, 1954, when I spoke about the relevant section of the 1952 Act—when I said it was a bit too stringent. He asks now why we should not have 52 weeks. There are various reasons.
I do not want the Minister to misunderstand me. I do not say that we should go back, but why do we not have the extra two weeks? Contributors must be working, sick or unemployed.
Except in the case of a perfect worker it would be impossible to obtain credit for 52 weeks. To obtain 52 weeks' credit now in the town of Wexford, where the workers must sign for every single day in order to get a credit for one week, would be nearly impossible. The worker must attend the employment exchange at 11 o'clock each morning. He may be sick some morning, not sufficiently to draw the disability benefit but too sick to go down to the employment exchange for one or two days. He will not qualify for disability benefit until three days or over but, by missing one day in the week, he loses his credit, so this is an attempt to give four weeks' grace.
I did not realise that by not signing in those circumstances he loses a week.
So far as I am aware, he must sign for every single day to get credit for the week. Take the case of, say, a tradesman who is in fairly constant employment and who becomes unemployed. Many of them do not bother to sign at the employment exchange because they expect to get work in the course of a few days or maybe in the course of a week. Again, if they do not sign for one day or any number of days in the week, they lose their credit for the whole week. I thought, therefore, it would be better to give them the four weeks' grace in the year.
I quite agree. I did not understand the position originally.
