Commencement and duration of benefit

(1) (a) With effect from 1st January 2001, an insured person who is eligible for sickness benefit shall be entitled to receive such benefit from the third day of any continuous period of (b) With effect from 1st January 2002, an insured person who is eligible for sickness benefit shall be entitled to receive such benefit from the second day of any continuous period of incapacity for work. (c) Notwithstanding subregulation (1) (a) and (b) above, where the incapacity continues 62 Social Security for an uninterrupted period of fourteen days or more, the insured person shall be eligible to receive sickness benefit from the first day of the said incapacity. (d) With effect from 1st January 2003, an insured person who is eligible for sickness benefit shall be entitled to receive such benefit from the first day of any continuous period of incapacity for work. (e) For the purpose of computing the first two days or one day as the case may be, of any continuous period of incapacity for work, Sundays and public holidays shall be included in such computation. (2) No insured person shall be entitled to sickness benefit after attaining sixty–five years. (3) Sickness benefit shall be payable to an insured person for each day as long as the incapacity for work continues subject to a maximum of two hundred and thirty–four days in any continuous period of incapacity for work. (4) Where sickness benefit has been paid for two hundred and thirty–four days in a continuous period of incapacity for work the five contributions required under subparagraph (b) in Regulation 4 shall be contributions paid after the last day in respect of which sickness benefit was paid. (5) For the purposes of this Regulation and of Regulation 6, any two periods of incapacity for work not separated by more than eight contribution weeks shall be treated as one continuous period of incapacity for work starting on the first day of the first of these periods.