asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will consider a change in existing regulations to enable island recipients of unemployment assistance to negotiate payments of assistance through ordinary commercial channels and thus avoid the necessity of a weekly trek to the local post office.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Unemployment Assistance Regulations.
Payment of unemployment assistance or unemployment benefit to persons resident on islands is mainly made by means of postal orders, but when the claimant resides six miles or less from a post office payment is made by an order payable only at a special post office.
If the Deputy will inform me of any cases where this procedure causes hardship I shall have the position examined and considered sympathetically.
I think there is no island on the coast on which a recipient of unemployment assistance resides six miles from a post office, but on the island of Arranmore recipients have to travel three and a half to four miles to cash their orders in the post office. If the Parliamentary Secretary could see his way to have that done through the ordinary commercial channels—the orders could be cashed by a shopkeeper or a publican for that matter—it would save a considerable amount of trouble.