asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will state, with regard to means and valuation, what categories of unemployed persons are eligible for unemployment assistance.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Eligibility for Unemployment Assistance.
31.
Apart from certain statutory conditions and disqualifications of general application, the eligibility of an unemployed person for unemployment assistance is affected by the amount of his assessed means, the area of his residence and whether he has dependants. These variables make it impracticable to categorise eligible persons by reference to means and valuation. Broadly speaking, however, the general yearly means limit is £188 10s but this amount is increased, if there are child dependants, by £26 for each of the first two and £13 for each other child. Thus, the means limit for, say, a man, wife and four children is £266 10s—which will, incidentally, become £292 10s in August next on enactment of the Budget proposals for increases in rates of unemployment assistance. Land valuation affects eligibility only in so far as it is a factor in the calculation of means.
Detailed explanatory leaflets about the unemployment assistance scheme are available free from my Department or from any Employment Exchange or Branch Employment Office and I am sending copies to the Deputy. They include a leaflet, U.A. 19 (S.F.), which enables landholders in the specified areas to find for themselves approximately how they stand under the new system for calculating the farm income of smallholders by reference to the valuation of their land.