asked the Minister for Social Welfare when he intends to give women parity with men in the context of unemployment assistance as at present constituted; if he will outline the existing anomalies; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Women's Unemployment Assistance.
27.
As the Deputy is aware the Report of the Commission on the Status of Women contained recommendations regarding the special requirement that single women or widows applying for unemployment assistance must have at least one dependant or have at least 52 ordinaryrate contributions paid over a recent four-year period.
As an immediate measure the commission recommended that women employed in agriculture and domestic service should have access to unemployment assistance when they had 52 employment contributions paid, irrespective of the rate of such contributions. This recommendation was given effect to by the Social Welfare Act, 1973 and came into operation on 1st October, 1973.
The position of women has been further improved in recent years by the introduction of new schemes such as deserted wife's benefit, deserted wife's allowance, social assistance allowances for prisoners' wives, unmarried mothers and elderly single women and by the progressive reductions in the qualifying age for both types of old age pension. In most instances these schemes make better provision for women than would the unemployment assistance scheme because of better rates of payment and less rigorous requirements regarding means and also because they free the recipient from the necessity of attending a local office to prove unemployment.
The commission in further recommending that the contribution condition for women applicants should be abolished recognised that this course would pose difficulties for my Department in ensuring that women who claim unemployment assistance are genuinely seeking employment, but suggested that these difficulties might be alleviated to a large extent by requiring from both male and female recipients of assistance a greater degree of mobility as between different jobs and different locations. It will be appreciated, however, that in the present unemployment situation, it is difficult to envisage measures of this kind having any appreciable effect. Moreover, complete abolition of the special conditions for women, including the requirement of having a dependant, would bring into question, for instance, the award to husbands of increases of assistance in respect of their wives and the desirability of attracting and having to process large numbers of claims from married women which undoubtedly would have to be disallowed eventually on the grounds of means.
Accordingly, though it is my intention that the recommendations of the commission will be kept in view in relation to any future development of the unemployment assistance scheme, I am not in a position to give the Deputy any indication of a timetable regarding the matter.