asked the Minister for Social Welfare if, in view of the large number of people unemployed for a lengthy continuous period of time and of the differences between rates for long-and short-term social welfare payments, he will consider categorising unemployment assistance as a long term benefit when people have been in receipt of it for a certain minimum time.

There is no formal system of categorising payments into short-term and long-term payments, and the question as to which payments are to be increased is a matter which is normally considered in the context of the budget. I am, however very conscious of the situation of the long-term unemployed and this year, for the first time, an additional 5 per cent increase in payments specifically for persons unemployed for over 15 months was provided with effect from October. In this way, unemployment assistance recipients who have been unemployed for 15 months or more will in future have this built-in increase in their rates of payment as a permanent feature.

I ask the Minister to clarify his statement that there is no formal categorising into short-term and long-term payments. That is certainly a revelation to me and to those on Social Welfare who are told, for instance, that at Christmas those on long-term benefit can receive a double week's allowance and those on short-term cannot.

A question, Deputy, please.

Would the Minister clarify what he meant by that statement? The purpose of my question is to have people on unemployment assistance up to a certain period of time regarded as on long-term benefit, the same as those on pension.

There is no statutory categorisation of benefits as such. A person could be on disability benefit for three or four weeks and, traditionally, that is regarded as short-term benefit. On the other hand, a person could be on disability benefit for 12 months and one might argue that that should be long-term benefit. Likewise, the prisioner's wife's allowance is generally regarded as long-term, although a person might be in receipt of that allowance for a very short or a very long period—eight to ten years or 12 months. The classification of payments has been purely on an ad hoc basis, budget by budget, and there is no method by which one could categorise such benefits as long-term or short-term.

A final supplementary, please.

Is it the function of the Minister to decide whether a person is on short-term or long-term benefit? Is that a ministerial function?

To the extent that, for example, this year the Government decided that unemployment assistance recipients who have been out of work for at least a year and three months would be categorised as long-term recipients because they would be on the very basic rate of unemployment assistance. They were categorised as long-term and a 5 per cent increase was given to 43,000 recipients. One could argue that if a period of a year were decided on, a larger number of persons would be involved. This is an ad hoc definition under the Act.

Decided by the Minister?

Budget by budget.

Minister by Minister?

Precisely. There is nothing particularly unusual about that.

It is a ministerial function?

It is a governmental function.

On the advice of the Minister?

Precisely.

9.