Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 November 2013
364. Deputy Joe Higgins asked the Minister for Social Protection if her Department will reconsider the requirements contained in the new form issued by her Department to allow those who are unemployed on certain days to claim jobseeker's benefit by indicating the days which they were not at work in view of the fact that it is causing difficulties for certain categories of workers (details supplied). [50395/13]
View answerIn the case of casual/part-time employment, the practice of having the weekly signing docket verified in advance by the employer was discontinued in 2009 in order to ensure the timely issue of payments to jobseeker customers who worked on a casual/part-time basis. At that time, the numbers of such workers had risen significantly and there was insufficient time available following the receipt of employer verified data to manually enter the weekly employment details onto the system. In order to eliminate delays in the generation of payments, the employer input was removed from the process at that time.
The situation has been monitored in the period since then by the Department and fraudulent claiming has been detected in a number of instances. The most common cases involved over-claiming by adding additional days to the docket, failure to notify the Department of a return to full-time employment, or of leaving employment, and a lack of facility on the docket to advise the Department where an employee had refused an offer of additional work.
In order to address this situation, the Department has utilised recent improvements in scanning technologies to produce a new docket, which can be scanned into the system and will deliver improvements in the following areas:
- improved control through re-introducing advance employer verification of work patterns;
- improved information on customer circumstances through the provision of a mechanism to notify the Department where an offer of additional work has been made by the employer;
- Improved administrative efficiency as weekly employment details are scanned in rather than manually entered.
It is expected that the use of the new form and scanning process will be extended to all local offices by mid-2014.
I recognise these arrangements can cause difficulties in a small number of cases and, in these circumstances, alternative arrangements can be put in place such as the acceptance of a signature from the employer’s local representative (e.g. a local supervisor or manager). Any customer experiencing such difficulties should contact their Intreo/social welfare local office where alternative arrangements can be discussed.
