Social Welfare Act 2003

Unemployment benefit — amendment to duration of payment.

11.—(1) Section 46 (as amended by section 13 of the Act of 1997) of the Principal Act is amended—

(a) in subsection (1) by inserting “or subsection (3A)” after “subsection (3)”,

(b) by substituting for subsection (3) the following:

“(3) Subsection (1) shall, in respect of a person who is over the age of 18 years and who has qualifying contributions in respect of not less than 260 contribution weeks, have effect as if ‘390 days’ were substituted for ‘156 days’.

(3A) Subsection (1) shall, in respect of a person who is over the age of 18 years and who has qualifying contributions in respect of less than 260 contribution weeks, have effect as if ‘312 days’ were substituted for ‘156 days’.”,

(c) in subsection (4) by inserting “312 days or” after “unemployment benefit for”, and

(d) in paragraph (b) of subsection (4) by substituting “subsections (1), (3) and (3A) as the case may be,” for “subsections (1) and (3)”.

(2) Where, immediately before the coming into operation of subsection (1), a person was entitled to or in receipt of unemployment benefit for 156 days or more in respect of a period of interruption of employment, the amendments effected in subsection (1) shall not apply to that person for the remainder of the said period of interruption of employment.

(3) This section comes into operation on 19 January 2004.