asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will state what evidence is necessary for an employer or employee to prove unemployment in the case of an application for unemployment benefit.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Unemployment Benefit: Proof of Unemployment.
21.
A person who does not reside more than six miles from a local office of my Department is required to attend at such office if he desires to claim unemployment benefit. He is required at the same time to hand in his insurance card and to furnish the name and address of his last employer and the commencing and terminating dates of his employment. The employer is required to verify the facts of his employment and to confirm that he has no further employment available for the claimant. The claimant is also required to make a declaration to the effect that he is unemployed and capable and available for work. So long as he remains unemployed a person is required to continue to prove unemployment by signature of the register of unemployed on each week day, or, with certain exceptions, less frequently if he resides over two miles from a local office of my Department. A person who resides over six miles from a local office attends once a week at his local Garda Station or other approved signing centres to prove his unemployment.
The Parliamentary Secretary has answered questions that I have not asked. What I want to get from the Parliamentary Secretary is the necessary steps which an employee and an employer must take to prove that there was a contract of employment between them. In order to make myself clear to the Parliamentary Secretary, might I tell him that is no case that I know of has either the employer's word or the employee's word been taken? It seems as if a number of Gestapo have been let loose by the Parliamentary Secretary for the purpose of discrediting decent employers and their employees all over the country and telling them that they are a lot of liars.
The Deputy is making a speech.
If the employer would insist on getting the insured person's insurance card on his entering into his employment, a great many of the difficulties pointed out by the Deputy would be overcome.
That is not the whole story.
Where that has been done and where both the employer and the employee have been scrupulously careful in observing the regulations, stamping cards and so on, can the Parliamentary Secretary tell me why it is that in practically every case the words of both the employer and the employee have been discredited? In some cases, they have offered to give sworn testimony. That has not been accepted. In other cases, they have been brought in and sworn; I am speaking now of the odd cases.
The Deputy is making a speech. He is not asking a question.
I am concerned with the vast majority of decent employers and employees, where there has been no collusion of any kind.
I have pointed out to the Deputy that if the insurance card is demanded by the employer——
I am talking about where that has been done.
——when he ceases work——
That is begging the question. The Parliamentary Secretary is answering something I did not ask.
My answer is the kernel of the whole position.