Self-Employed Workers Campaign for Dole Rights

85.1 % of self-employed workers believe they should be entitled to 12 months' unemployment benefit if they are forced to cease trading, instead of the current 6 months.

Members of the National Federation of Associations of Autonomous Workers (ATA) believe that by paying an extra 2 % social security, they should be entitled to 3 months' dole per year worked up to a maximum of 12 months.

As it stands at the moment they are not entitled to anything unless they had previously accumulated it through being employed on a contract less than five years ago, but a new law is being drafted to change their situation.

Last week saw over 100 changes to the draft law, mostly relating to increasing the length of time over which the self-employed can claim unemployment benefit.

97.4 % believed that they should be entitled to claim benefits in the same way as employees, and 77.4 % say they are prepared to pay extra in social security every month in order to qualify for this.

A further 76.8 % said that they would be prepared to pay even more if it entitled them to a longer period of being able to claim unemployment benefits.