asked the Minister for Social Welfare the total saving to the Exchequer as a result of depriving unemployed men under the age of fifty years, without dependants, of unemployment assistance for six months, taking into account the number who became eligible for disability benefit.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Welfare Benefits.
66.
Mr. J. Lenehan
It is not possible to say to what extent recipients of Unemployment Assistance who were debarred at the commencement of the 1971 employment period would have continued to be recipients during the period, or to what extent men who were not actually recipients at the commencement would later have become eligible but for being debarred. Information is likewise not available as to the extent to which men to whom the employment period order applies may have become eligible for disability benefit. In these circumstances, it is not feasible to give the particulars sought by the Deputy. It can, however, be stated that the provision made for saving on unemployment assistance arising from the current employment period, which runs from 14th April, 1971, to 16th November, 1971, is £800,000 and that the indications are that the saving should be of that order.
67.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if, in view of the fact that convicted persons are deprived of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance, he will introduce legislation to alleviate the resultant hardship on their dependants who are compelled to live on home assistance.
It is assumed that the question arises from those provisions of the Social Welfare Acts and the Unemployment Assistance Acts under which a person convicted by the courts of the offence in relation to a claim for unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance is disqualified for the receipt of such benefit or assistance, as the case may be, for six months from the date of the conviction. These provisions are an integral part of the measures which unfortunately my Department are obliged to maintain in order to control and, if possible, to eliminate, abuses of the schemes of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance. The liability to prosecution for fraudulent claims and to consequential disqualification is brought to the notice of every claimant under both schemes. The problem of fraud in relation to the schemes is one of continuing serious concern—indeed, it was the subject of comment by the Public Accounts Committee last year —and it is not proposed to introduce legislation of the nature indicated in the question.
I must point out, with a view to preventing misunderstanding, that where conviction is for an unemployment benefit offence, the disqualification applies only to benefit and does not extend to unemployment assistance. Similarly, disqualification arising from conviction for an unemployment assistance offence does not extend to unemployment benefit. Furthermore, the imposition of the disqualification does not necessarily entail actual deprivation of either benefit or assistance as the person concerned may no longer be a claimant at the time of the conviction or within the ensuing six months.