asked the Minister or Social Welfare if there is any provision in the code of social welfare legislation whereunder parking attendants in Dublin City could avail of social insurance by stamping their own cards as voluntary participants in social insurance.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Dublin Parking Attendants: Social Insurance.
26.
There is no provision in the Social Welfare Acts, 1952 and 1956 under which parking attendants in Dublin City could avail of the cover provided under those Acts by stamping their own cards as voluntary participants.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary consider the case of this category of persons and as to whether, in the event of legislation being introduced hereafter, their special circumstances could be catered for if they could be brought within the code?
Ask the Minister.
He is grumbling and rumbling.
Even so, he is the Minister.
Deputy Dillon cannot address me. He has not his mouthpiece in the shape of Deputy McMenamin.
There is an arrangement whereby, if they were insured previously for three years, they can become voluntary contributors under the Social Welfare Act for certain benefits, such as widows' and orphans' benefits.
As the Parliamentary Secretary is aware, while they are under the supervision of, I think, the police authority, they are actually employed by nobody and yet their occupation in life corresponds very closely to an employed person and, in the event of sickness, they have no recourse at all. I appreciate that the matter is not a simple one but perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would ask his Minister to consider it.