S.I. No. 373/2012 - Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) (Amendment) (No. 9) (Information) Regulations 2012.

Notice of the making of this Statutory Instrument was published in

“Iris Oifigiúil” of 2nd October, 2012.

I, JOAN BURTON, Minister for Social Protection, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by sections 4 (amended by section 96 of the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Act 2011 (No. 10 of 2011)) and 244A (inserted by section 12 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2011 (No. 9 of 2011)) of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 (No. 26 of 2005), hereby make the following Regulations:

Citation and construction.

1. (1) These Regulations may be cited as the Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) (Amendment) (No. 9) (Information) Regulations 2012.

(2) These Regulations and the Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) Regulations 2007 to 2012 shall be construed together as one and may be cited together as the Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) Regulations 2007 to 2012.

Information to be supplied by claimants and beneficiaries for profiling and activation purposes.

2. The Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) Regulations 2007 ( S.I. No. 142 of 2007 ) are amended—

(a) in article 181 by deleting sub-articles (1A) and (1B) (inserted by article 4 of the Social Welfare (Consolidated Claims, Payments and Control) (Amendment) (No. 2) (Claims) Regulations 2010 ( S.I. No. 661 of 2010 ), and

(b) by inserting the following article after article 188:

“Information to be supplied by claimants and beneficiaries for profiling and activation purposes.

188A.(1) Without prejudice to the generality of articles 181(1) and 188(1), a person who makes a claim for, or is in receipt of, any benefit specified for the purposes of this article shall provide the information specified in sub-article (3) on being requested by an officer of the Minister who has formed the opinion that the furnishing of such information would assist in—

(a) determining that person’s entitlement to benefit, or

(b) in assessing the training, education or development needs appropriate to that person’s personal circumstances.

(2) In this article “benefit” means—

(a) illness benefit,

(b) jobseeker’s benefit,

(c) invalidity pension,

(d) jobseeker’s allowance,

(e) one-parent family payment, and

(f) disability allowance.

(3) For the purposes of sub-article (1), an officer of the Minister may request a person who makes a claim for, or is in receipt of, any benefit to provide the following details in respect of that person—

(a) any claims for any benefit made in the 5 years immediately before that request has been made,

(b) current employment or last employment held, if any, and details of the gross weekly earnings in that employment,

(c) any periods of employment under a scheme provided by the Minister and known as Community Employment in the 5 years immediately before that request has been made,

(d) the highest level of education completed,

(e) any apprenticeship training completed,

(f) address and size of location,

(g) access to private means of transport (e.g. car, van, motorcycle),

(h) access to public transport options, including private bus and coach operators,

(i) efforts undertaken to seek employment,

(j) literacy and numeracy difficulties,

(k) general state of health,

(l) proficiency in the English language,

(m) date of birth,

(n) country of birth,

(o) marital status or civil status,

(p) family composition,

(q) gross weekly earnings of spouse, civil partner or cohabitant, if any,

(r) nationality.”.

GIVEN under my Official Seal,

28 September 2012.

JOAN BURTON,

Minister for Social Protection.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Instrument and does not purport to be a legal interpretation.)

These Regulations extend the existing provisions relating to the information to be provided by new claimants for Jobseeker’s Benefit and Allowance for profiling and activation purposes to existing recipients of these payments. These provisions are also being extended to new claimants and existing recipients of Illness Benefit, Invalidity Pension, One-Parent Family Payment and Disability Allowance.