28. Mr. T. WILSONasked the Minister of Labour how many trade unions and how many friendly societies have made arrangements to administer the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920, as provided for in Section 17 of the Act; and how many persons are entitled to receive their unemployment benefit through the trade unions and friendly societies and how many through the labour exchanges?
§ The MINISTER of LABOUR (Dr. Macnamara)Arrangements under Section 17 of the Act are in operation with 185 trade unions and 20 friendly societies. The number of insured persons entitled to claim, State unemployment benefit through the associations having such arrangements is estimated to be rather more than 2,500,000. There are thus about 9,500,000 who can obtain benefit only through the Employment Exchanges, but for various reasons a certain number of the members of the associations referred to also obtain their benefit through the Exchanges; in particular this is so in certain cases where the arrangements have been completed very recently.