Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2006, published 96th ILC session (2007)

Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102) - Ireland (Ratification: 1968)

The Committee took note of the Government’s report and would like to receive additional information on the following points.

Part IV (Unemployment benefit) of the Convention in relation to Article 69. According to the Government’s report, a person may be disqualified from receiving unemployment benefit for a period of up to nine weeks for, inter alia, loss of employment through misconduct, refusal of an offer of suitable employment, failure or neglect to avail of any reasonable opportunity of obtaining suitable employment. The Committee would like the Government to explain the scope of the notions of “misconduct”, “failure or neglect” and “suitable employment”, and to provide guidelines on the practical application of these provisions by the deciding officers.

Part XI (Standards to be complied with by periodical payments). The Committee notes that calculation of the replacement level of benefits has been selected according to Article 66(4)(a) of the Convention. It also notes that the report refers to the maximum weekly rates of the disability and unemployment benefits and the widow’s pension, as well as to the annual earnings ceiling for purposes of the employee’s social insurance contribution. The Committee would like the Government to show in its next report, on the basis of appropriate statistics, that the maximum limits prescribed for the rate of the benefits and for the earnings taken into account for the calculation of the benefits are fixed in such a way as to comply with the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 3 of Article 65 of the Convention.