Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2005

Disability benefit.

4.—(1) Section 32 (as amended by section 11 of this Act) of the Principal Act is amended by inserting the following after subsection (9):

“(10) In the case of any claim for disability benefit, where, at the time of application for that benefit, the claimant—

(a) is in receipt of or entitled to unemployment assistance under section 121(1)(a), and

(b) has qualifying contributions in respect of not less than 260 weeks,

subsection (1)(b)(i) shall be read as if ‘39 contribution weeks’ were substituted for ‘39 contribution weeks, of which at least 13 must be qualifying contributions’ and subsection (1)(c) shall not apply.

(11) In the case of any claim for disability benefit where, on the date immediately before the claim, a person was in receipt of or entitled to occupational injury benefit, subsection (1)(b)(i) shall be read as if ‘in the second last or third last complete contribution year’ were substituted for ‘in the second last complete contribution year’ ”.

(2) This section comes into operation on 2 May 2005.