A detailed Government proposal for unemployment insurance should be ready before the end of the year, according to Financial Secretary Donald Scott.

Speaking following the 2004 Budget where there was no mention of the plans, Mr. Scott explained that a Government paper was in the process of being prepared and would be announced within nine months.

“The work is going on now and the hope is that we may be able to complete it with the next nine months,” said Mr. Scott.

“Within that period of time it will go back to the stakeholders and then Government would be in a position to announce what it intends to do that in concrete terms.”

In the 2002 Budget then Finance Minister Eugene Cox put aside $1 million as “seed money” to develop plans for a safety net for Bermuda's workers and had hoped to come up with plans within six months.

But this failed to materialise, and the public has been in limbo since waiting to hear what had happened to the scheme.

Businesses expressed concern about the plan which they claim was not needed because of high employment rates and because it would add more cost onto doing business in Bermuda. But Mr. Cox dismissed these claims saying that the workers of Bermuda needed the security of an unemployment plan should some ill befall the economy and large numbers left out of work in the short term.

Now Mr. Scott has said it has never been off the agenda and officials have been working behind the scenes to make sure they have a policy that can work.

“Two Budgets ago that the Minister reported he was hoping to have that work come to a conclusion,” said Mr. Scott.

“In fact what has happened is that there has been an early round of consultation with the stakeholders including the employers, and their comments have come back and what we are doing now is going through a draft of a policy paper which we can put back to interested stakeholders.”

Mr. Cox said two years ago that in Bermuda people had problems coming forward for social assistance, but may feel they have more right to an insurance policy.

He said at the time: “We feel that a contributory system would work and people will feel free to go forward and ask for help after between say 20 and 26 weeks of work.

“But we will be discussing this with employers and employees. I do think that this is something we need to do and is a much better way to help the people rather than through social assistance... and that figure goes up every year.”

Still to be revealed about the unemployment insurance plan are financing, participation, benefits, conditions for entitlement and administration.