asked the Minister for Social Welfare how the means of an applicant (details supplied) in County Donegal for unemployment assistance were determined by a deciding officer to be £9.95 per week.

As the person concerned is a landholder residing in one of the specified areas of congestion, his means for unemployment assistance purposes in connection with his claim of 26th March, 1975, were assessed by a deciding officer and subsequently by an appeals officer on the statutory basis then applicable of £20 per each £1 of the rateable valuations of the holdings which he owns and of his intestacy interest in a holding which he occupies. His weekly means, thus arrived at, were £9.95 and as this exceeded the maximum rate of assistance applicable to this case his application for unemployment assistance had to be disallowed.