Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005

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Disqualifications.

[1993 s125(1); 2005 (SW&P) s13(b)]

147.—(1) A person shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment assistance while he or she is—

(a) an inmate of an institution maintained wholly or partly out of public moneys or by a local authority,

(b) employed during any week under a scheme administered by an Foras Áiseanna Saothair and known as Community Employment, or

(c) employed during any week under a scheme administered under the aegis of the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and known as the Rural Social Scheme.

(2) A person who has lost employment by reason of a stoppage of work which was due to a trade dispute at the factory, workshop, farm or other premises or place at which he or she was employed shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment assistance so long as the stoppage of work continues, except in the case where the person has, during the stoppage of work, become bona fide employed elsewhere in the occupation which he or she usually follows or has become regularly engaged in some other occupation but this subsection shall not apply to a person who is not participating in or directly interested in the trade dispute which caused the stoppage of work.

(3) Where separate branches of work which are commonly carried on as separate businesses in separate premises or at separate places are in any case carried on in separate departments of the same premises or at the same place, each of those departments, for the purposes of subsection (2), is deemed to be a separate factory, workshop or farm or separate premises or a separate place, as the case may be.

(4) A person shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment assistance for the period that may be determined by a deciding officer, but in any case not exceeding 9 weeks, where the person—

(a) has lost his or her employment through his or her own misconduct or has voluntarily left his or her employment without just cause,

(b) has refused an offer of suitable employment,

(c) has without good cause refused or failed to avail himself or herself of any reasonable opportunity of receiving training provided or approved of by an Foras Áiseanna Soathair as suitable in the person's case, or

(d) has failed or neglected to avail himself or herself of any reasonable opportunity of obtaining suitable employment,

and the period of disqualification shall begin on the day on which the loss or leaving of employment, refusal, failure or neglect, as the case may be, occurred.

(5) For the purpose of this section, employment is not deemed to be suitable employment in the case of any person where it is employment in a situation vacant in consequence of a stoppage of work due to a trade dispute.

(6) Unemployment assistance and unemployment benefit shall not both be payable in respect of the same day or days.