Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 July 2022
354. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Social Protection the estimated cost of introducing a universal payment to all PAYE and self-employed workers who satisfy existing jobseeker’s benefit criteria of €200, €300, €400, €500 in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38387/22]
View answerJobseeker's Benefit (JB) and Jobseeker's Benefit (Self-employed) (JBSE) are social insurance schemes whereby entitlement is dependent on a person's PRSI contribution record. There are a number of statutory conditions applied under the schemes including that a person has experienced a loss of employment and is genuinely seeking to increase their employment. Unless a person can satisfy all of these conditions, they would not satisfy the criteria for jobseeker's benefit supports.
Information is not readily available as to how many people making PRSI contributions would satisfy the jobseeker's PRSI conditionality requirement, which includes an assessment of their contributions in the governing contribution year, which for 2022 is 2020. However, estimated weekly and annual costings for every 100,000 recipients of a universal payment of €200, €300, €400 and €500 would be as follows:
|
Based on 100,000 recipients of a weekly Universal Income of: |
Weekly Cost |
Annual Cost over 52 weeks |
|
€200 |
€20 Million |
€1,040 Million |
|
€300 |
€30 Million |
€1,560 Million |
|
€400 |
€40 Million |
€2,080 Million |
|
€500 |
€50 Million |
€2,600 Million |
I hope this information is of assistance to the Deputy.
