Unemployment benefit is a short-term, contribution-based payment which is payable for up to 15 months, after which a person may apply for unemployment assistance, a means tested payment. Alternatively, one of a couple may receive credited contributions only, in order to maintain an insurance record while qualifying as an adult dependant on a spouse and partner's or on a partner's claim. However, there is no obligation on any person to become a qualified adult dependant on a partner's social welfare payment.
In general a payment limitation applies where unemployment assistance is in payment to one of a married or cohabiting couple and the recipient's partner is also in receipt of a payment. In this case, the rate of unemployment assistance payable is the maximum amount payable if one person claimed the other as an adult dependant.
Administrative individualisation is in place within the social welfare system, whereby a qualified adult dependant may opt to receive the relevant payment separately. This does not involve any changes in the rules and conditions for entitlement but comprises arrangements whereby payments, which include increases in respect of a qualified adult, are split between the parties involved. My Department has always provided for payments to be split in certain circumstances, for example, in cases of domestic difficulty where a spouse might otherwise have no other form of income.
The issue of better integration of the taxation and social welfare systems has been considered on a number of occasions since the Commission on Social Welfare finalised its report in 1986 most notably by the tax welfare integration group in 1996 and in the report of the working group examining the treatment of married, cohabiting and one-parent families under the tax and social welfare codes of 1999. The latter report noted that there are clear differences in the social welfare and tax codes in their treatment of different types of households, but that it could be argued that the income support and revenue generation objectives of the codes were fundamentally different.