(This note is not part of the Instrument and does not purport to be a legal interpretation.)

These Regulations provide for the continuation of the operation of the Employer Job (PRSI) Exemption Scheme during 2012 and for an extension to the categories covered. Private sector employers who take on additional employees during 2012 are exempted from having to pay the employer’s portion of the PRSI contribution in respect of the earnings paid to those additional employees. The period of exemption is being increased from 12 to 18 months. The job must be new, additional, be for at least 30 hours a week and last for at least 6 months.

In addition to the categories of people regarded as additional employees for the purposes of the Exemption Scheme that operated during 2011, i.e. people receiving certain social welfare payments for 6 months or more immediately before taking up employment - jobseeker’s benefit, jobseeker’s allowance, one-parent family payment or disability allowance, and participants on the Work Placement Programme, these Regulations provide for an extension of the Scheme to a number of new categories. Periods of participation on JobBridge will also count towards eligibility, as will similar periods of participation on Community Employment, the Rural Social Scheme, Tús, the Back to Education Allowance and FÁS training courses. This will mean that eligible persons, such JobBridge and Work Placement Programme participants, may be employed directly from those schemes once the required 6 month qualifying period has been satisfied.

These Regulations provide that periods of casual employment while the person is also in receipt of a jobseekers payment will count towards satisfying the 6 month qualifying period, as will breaks in jobseekers payments etc. or participation in employment and training schemes as a result of periods of illness during which illness benefit is paid.