Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1981

Supplementary Benefit

Right to supplementary benefit.

[1942 IU, s. 28]

251.—(1) Every insured person who is intermittently unemployed on any day (other than a Sunday or a public holiday within the meaning of the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1973 , or the first day of a spell of insurable employment with the person who was his employer when such intermittent unemployment occurred) and in whose case the conditions in section 253 are fulfilled shall, subject to this Part, be entitled to receive payment (in this Part referred to as supplementary benefit) in respect of each hour of intermittent unemployment occurring on such day during working hours.

(2) Where the duration of a period of intermittent unemployment occurring during working hours on any day is a fraction of an hour only or is one or more hours and a fraction of an hour, supplementary benefit shall not be payable in respect of such fraction of an hour and, for the purposes of this subsection, where two or more periods of intermittent unemployment occur during working hours on any day such periods shall be deemed to be one continuous period:

[1963 MP, s. 18]

Provided that, where the working hours on any day consist of a number of hours and a fraction of an hour (not being less than half-an-hour) supplementary benefit shall be payable in respect of such fraction of an hour where intermittent unemployment occurs during the working hours on that day and extends over the whole of such hours.

(3) In this section “working hours” means, in relation to an insured person, the hours, exclusive of overtime and mealtime, during which, if there was not inclement weather, work in an insurable employment would have been performed by the insured person.