Vol. 428 No. 3
7 Mr. Burke asked the Minister for Social Welfare the estimated annual cost of making the PRSI exemption scheme, as contained in section 18 of the Social Welfare Bill, a permanent feature of the social welfare code without any cut off date for recruitment.
8 Mr. Boylan asked the Minister for Social Welfare the estimated annual cost of making the PRSI exemption scheme, as contained in section 18 of the Social Welfare Bill, a permanent feature of the social welfare code without any cut off date for recruitment.
11 Mr. Crawford asked the Minister for Social Welfare the estimated annual cost of making the PRSI exemption scheme, as contained in section 18 of the Social Welfare Bill, a permanent feature of the social welfare code without any cut off date for recruitment.
18 Mr. Bradford asked the Minister for Social Welfare the estimated annual cost of making the PRSI exemption scheme, as contained in section 18 of the Social Welfare Bill, a permanent feature of the social welfare code without any cut off date for recruitment.
22 Mr. Dukes asked the Minister for Social Welfare the estimated annual cost of making the PRSI exemption scheme, as contained in section 18 of the social Welfare Bill, a permanent feature of the social welfare code without any cut off date for recruitment.
27 Mr. Barrett asked the Minister for Social Welfare the estimated annual cost of making the PRSI exemption scheme, as contained in section 18 of the Social Welfare Bill, a permanent feature of the social welfare code without any cut off date for recruitment.
38 Mrs. T. Ahearn asked the Minister for Social Welfare the estimated annual cost of making the PRSI exemption scheme, as contained in section 18 of the Social Welfare Bill, a permanent feature of the social welfare code without any cut off date for recruitment.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 7, 8, 11, 18, 22, 27 and 38 together.
The PRSI exemption scheme, as contained in section 18 of the Social Welfare Bill, is not expected to lead to any cost to the Exchequer. Under the scheme, employers who take on additional full-time employees in the period from 19 October 1992 to 19 September 1993 will not have to pay the employer's PRSI contribution in respect of these employees for a period of two years from April 1993. To the extent to which additional employment is created, PRSI income from employees will be increased. In addition, as the workers will be drawn from the Live Register there will be a saving in unemployment payments.
Making the scheme a permanent feature of the social welfare code would not incur significant costs, provided that the jobs concerned were not displacing jobs which would have been created anyway, and that the people concerned would otherwise be in receipt of unemployment payments. However, if these conditions were not met, some additional costs would occur.
We were beginning to address this question this morning on the Social Welfare Bill. I remarked that sections 16 and 17 increasing the PRSI contributions compared most favourably with this scheme. The Minister states that the scheme is operated at no cost to the State. In view of the fact that 300,000 people have no work, would it not make good social and economic sense to implement this scheme in full for five or six years at least? It has worked reasonably well and there is every possibility that if the Minister adopted this suggestion it would result in people being removed from the social welfare system and getting back into employment. A small cost in the short term would be justified if people could be got back to work in the medium term.
The scheme was due to finish on 19 March but I am having it extended to 19 September so that it will be in place when consideration is being given to plans for employment. I will be working on supports for getting people back into work and I will be adopting a pro-active approach. Many proposals have come from the Department of Social Welfare but it is hard to get them accepted because there is always some cost involved. I have extended the scheme until September, when it can be looked at again. If people are taken from the Live Register for a year or two it will not have a damaging effect in the long term on the social insurance fund. If the scheme is used for people who would otherwise get employment, there is a cost. There are some 1,100 applications under the scheme to date. The extension to September will give us an opportunity to review the scheme in the meantime and possibly to go further with it.
