asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he is aware of the growing number of allegations by insured married women workers that they are being refused benefit or sanction for signing for credits at local employment exchanges on the grounds that they are not available for employment, notwithstanding emphatic assurances to the contrary by such insured persons.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Married Women's Unemployment Benefit.
23.
I am not so aware. In any event, as the Deputy is no doubt aware, the question as to whether a person is available for employment in connection with a claim to unemployment benefit is determined by a deciding officer or, in regard to an appeal, by an appeals officer.
Almost every Deputy on this side of the House, and I am sure on the Minister's side, is aware that there seems to be a peculiarly bloody-minded and suspicious attitude once the words "maternity" and "married women" are mentioned. In the last 12 months a large number of cases have been brought to my attention where deciding officers and appeals officers have been saying automatically to women, "Look, I am telling you, you are not available for work" when in fact these married women repeatedly assure the deciding officer they are available.
They call it "protecting the funds".
There seems to be a bit of a protection racket going on. The Minister should tell such officers to act in a thoroughly impartial manner because we on this side of the House are sick to death of this.
The Minister must be aware of cases, because I have brought them to his attention, in which women with children have given written assurances that their children will be taken care of, but despite these assurances the Department's officers have refused to recognise them for unemployment benefit. Will the Minister issue a directive to these deciding officers, whose decision is supposedly final, that they are acting in an unfair manner?
I have brought to the attention of the Department recently several cases in which the mothers of these women are living in the same house and would therefore look after the children but still the women concerned have been told that they are not available for work.
Is there any change?
Squeezing the married women.
Order, order.
There is no change——
It has been going on for three years.
There is no special policy in regard to this matter. I have answered questions about this matter on many occasions. The same conditions apply for qualifying for unemployment benefit as apply in any other individual case. I also have had a number of complaints from my own constituents. In seeking to ascertain whether they comply with the required regulations that is, being capable of, available for and generally seeking work, the Department usually have recourse to the firm with which they worked before they became unemployed. In many cases the position is that the work which they had before they started to draw the maternity allowances, which they draw for a number of weeks before and after childbirth, is available to them. The position is difficult and every Deputy can see it quite easily: as soon as they have exhausted the maternity benefit allowance they apply for unemployment benefit. The firm with which they worked, and to which they intend returning must say, "We have no work for them now but by the time they have finished drawing unemployment benefit we will have work". Any conscientious officer will find it difficult to read these people as qualifying under the required conditions.
Would it not be better to offer these women employment and if they refuse then it could be decided that they were not eligible? Would that not seem a much more reasonable approach to the matter?
This happens.
No, it does not. It is a lie. It does not happen. I did not say the Minister is a liar, I said, "It is a lie".
There is very little distinction there.
(Interruptions.)
May I ask one supplementary? I am sure the Minister has not had an opportunity, as we have had, of going with any of these women before the deciding officer. Would he not accept that if a Deputy goes in with a woman who is appealing on an unemployment benefit question and is able to give evidence that not alone her former employer but a number of other employers have no work for her, and if somebody is willing to give a written undertaking that she will look after the baby, surely that is evidence that she is available for work? Is it not a question of protecting the funds? Is it not a misdirected idea by some officials of the Department, the one section that gets most criticised?
They are not all refused.
I do not know of any who are not.
The Minister has given two criteria for judging whether or not a person is available for work——
The Deputy must ask a question. Speeches are not in order at Question Time.
——first, the deciding officer's decision that a person is capable of, and available for work and secondly, recourse to the firm, but another criterion to be taken into account is the assurance by the insured person that she is fully available for work, that there is no question of her children, if children are involved, being neglected, as has been inferred to some particular applicants. There is an urgent need for the Minister to review the situation now.
Get rid of the officials who are making these decisions.
What the House wants me to do is to give a direction or change the law in such a way that these people will automatically get it.
No, no, just get their rights.
Deciding officers and appeals officers are independent of any directions from me, as the House knows. In a case I was dealing with recently, where a married woman had been working in a convent, when the officials went to the convent to ascertain if there was work available the reply was that there was work but that the woman had given them to understand that she would not be prepared to come back until she had finished drawing her unemployment benefit.
(Interruptions.)
The Deputy may not ask these supplementary questions.
In view of the action of the Minister and his failure to give me a satisfactory answer, I propose, with your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, to raise the matter on the Adjournment.
The Chair will communicate with the Deputy.