Vol. 548 No. 5
345 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if he has considered introducing a form of voluntary social insurance cover for building workers who are forced to work on the C45 self-employed system in order that they would, for example, after a period of three or four years of continuous contributions become eligible for sickness or unemployment cover; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5405/02]
Self-employed construction workers pay PRSI at class S, the same class as other self-employed persons. PRSI class S provides cover for widow's and widower's contributory pension, orphan's contributory allowance, old-age contributory pension, maternity benefit, adoptive benefit and bereavement grant. For reasons of equity, before any proposals to extend the range of benefits for self-employed construction workers could be introduced, the question of providing similar arrangements for other categories of self-employed worker would need to be examined. Changes of this magnitude to the PRSI system would need to be considered carefully from the financial and administrative points of view and would need to be considered in a budgetary context.
