Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933

Disqualifications for receiving unemployment assistance.

16.—(1) A person shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment assistance—

(a) while he is resident, whether temporarily or permanently, outside Saorstát Eireann, and

(b) while he is undergoing imprisonment or detention in any prison or other place of detention maintained wholly or partly out of public funds, and

(c) while he is an inmate of any institution maintained wholly or partly out of public moneys or by a local authority, and

(d) while he is in receipt of or entitled to a pension under section 6 of the Old Age Pensions Act, 1932 (No. 18 of 1932), or any sickness or disablement allowance under the National Health Insurance Acts, 1911 to 1933, or unemployment benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 to 1930, or any benefit under a special scheme under section 18 of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920, or under section 19 of that Act or under a supplementary scheme under section 20 of that Act.

(2) Where a person loses his employment through his misconduct, or voluntarily leaves his employment without just cause, such person shall—

(a) in case he is an insured contributor under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 to 1930, and is entitled to unemployment benefit on the expiration of the period of disqualification for receiving unemployment benefit fixed by sub-section (2) of section 8 of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920, be disqualified for receiving unemployment assistance for the period during which he is disqualified for receiving unemployment benefit and also for the period of six weeks as from the date on which his right to receive unemployment benefit expires, and

(b) in any other case, be disqualified for receiving unemployment assistance for the period of three months from the date on which he lost or so left his employment.

(3) Where a person has been convicted of any offence under any section of this Act, such person shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment assistance during the period of three months, or such lesser period (not being less than six weeks) as may be prescribed, from the date on which he is so convicted.

(4) Where a person has been convicted of any crime or offence (other than an offence under a section of this Act) and has on such conviction been sentenced to imprisonment for any term not less than one fortnight, such person shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment assistance for the period of three months from the date on which he is so convicted or for the period of his imprisonment, whichever is the longer.

(5) A person who lost employment by reason of a stoppage of work which was due to a trade dispute at the factory, workshop or other premises at which he was employed, shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment assistance so long as the stoppage of work continues, except in the case where he has, during the stoppage of work, become bona fide employed elsewhere in the occupation which he usually follows or has become regularly engaged in some other occupation

Where separate branches of work which are commonly carried on as separate businesses in separate premises are in any case carried on in separate departments of the same premises, each of those departments shall, for the purposes of this sub-section, be deemed to be a separate factory or workshop or separate premises, as the case may be.

(6) In this section the word “imprisonment” includes penal servitude.