unemployment benefit plus part time freelance role?

Not sure if this should be in the taxation forum, or here, so mods, apologies, and please feel free to move if in wrong forum.

I have been in receipt of unemployment benefit for the last few months due to redundancy from my previous fulltime PAYE position, and have recently been offered a few days a week work as a freelancer. I understand I will have to register myself as self employed for this income, and plan on speaking to both revenue and welfare about my situation to find out what I should do next, but wanted to get an idea of what I should expect and what I may need to do.

If I take this freelancing work, which I expect to be a long term freelance role (but it's only a few days a week, rather than fulltime) it will leave me with 3 or 4 days a week to play with to take up other part time work if I can find it.

My query is this:
Will I be entitled to continue to claim unemployment benefit on the days I am not working, until I find employment for the other days?
I know as a PAYE worker you get your employer to fill out a form stating which days you worked in a week, and you will be topped up for the days you are unemployed. I am not sure, however, that as a self employed person (which I assume I would be if I were to freelance) you can claim assistance in the form of jobseeker's benefit for the days you are still seeking work for.

If anyone can point me in the right direction or has any advice I'd be grateful, just want to know what to expect!

Regarding the welfare side of your query: Jobseeker's Benefit is only payable in respect of days of unemployment so JB is not payable in respect of any day during which the person is engaged in insurable employment or self-employment - irrespective of the extent of the employment (number of hours worked) or the remuneration or profit. So if you are working for, say 2 days per week, you will be entitled to claim JB for 4 days per week. If one of the 2 days you are working is a Sunday, as this day is not counted for SW payment purposes, you will be entitled to 5 days JB.

Thanks for the response welfarite, that's exactly what I was wondering about!

when does job seekers benefit change of been fund by your stamps to been means test?

Joejoe

joejoe, is that question for me, or are you wondering yourself when it changes over? I think it's 65 weeks after you first sign on if you have the max contributions made.