asked the Minister for Social Welfare if she will give an estimate of the amount of money being paid weekly in (a) unemployment benefit and (b) unemployment assistance; and if she will give a breakdown of the figures indicating the amounts being paid in each region; and the number of recipients in each region.

As the reply is in the form of a tabular statement, I propose with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to circulate it with the Official Report.

Following is the Statement:

The following statement gives the total estimated weekly expenditure and numbers of recipients for week ending 11 September, 1981 in respect of unemployment benefit, pay-related benefit and unemployment assistance. The statement also shows the overall expenditure distributed between the nine regions used by the Central Statistics Office. It will be seen from the table that the estimated expenditure for unemployment benefit is £2,11 £2,119,972 while the estimated expenditure for unemployment assistance is £2,223,044.

Note: (i) Rates of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance were increased by approximately 3 per cent from October 1981 but no figures are yet to hand for that period.

(ii) As pay-related benefit is paid as a supplement to unemployment benefit, numbers receiving pay-related benefit are included in the numbers of unemployment benefit recipients.

Would the Minister tell me the two principal figures?

Unemployment benefit £2,119,972 and unemployment assistance £2,223,044.

What date are these figures based on and do they include the recent increase in the unemployment figure of over 129,000 per week?

The statement gives the total estimated weekly expenditure and number of recipients for the week ending 11 September 1981.

What was the level of unemployment at that stage?

I do not have that information. It was not sought in the question.