Finance Minister Paula Cox says plans for a Bermuda unemployment insurance scheme ? something some business leaders quietly hoped was no longer under consideration when it wasn?t mentioned in Friday?s Budget ? are still on the table.

Speaking yesterday to the business community at a post-Budget breakfast meeting organised by the Chamber of Commerce, Ms Cox said previously touted plans to install the scheme to provide payments to those out of work was still on track to be tabled in the House of Assembly by the end of 2006. The subject was raised by an audience member after Ms Cox gave a recap of this year?s Budget without mentioning the measure. There has been little from Government on the prospect of unemployment insurance since last November?s Throne Speech, leading some to question if it had been dropped from the agenda.

Some business leaders previously said that Bermuda?s two percent unemployment rate isn?t significant enough to warrant the measure. And there is concern that an unemployment insurance scheme will push up the already high cost of doing business in Bermuda.

Meanwhile, Bermuda Industrial Union president Derrick Burgess said the insurance can?t be installed soon enough.

?Legislation will be coming in the fourth quarter to undergird the unemployment insurance fund. As you will appreciate this Government seeks to work with its business partners,? Ms Cox said, indicating plans to keep the business sector informed on plans to institute the measure.

She said Bermuda?s unemployment insurance is to be developed uniquely for Bermuda. ?Bermuda?s unemployment rate is low. There are specific industries that are more vulnerable. We want to use the monies where they can do the greatest good.?

Mr. Burgess, who backs the idea of unemployment insurance, said: ?It was in the Throne Speech and right now I think they are in the process of putting the system together. In the next few months it will be addressed.?

He said short term benefits were necessary to tide over seasonal workers, such as hotel staff, when they were laid off.

?We definitely need it like yesterday.? Employees in the retail sector could also be helped by the scheme, with 220 workers left without jobs last year after Front Street department stores Trimingham Brothers Ltd. and H.A. & E. Smith?s shut down.

In 2004, $1 million in seed money was set aside for the unemployment insurance scheme.

The idea for unemployment insurance was first put on the table in 2002 by Ms Cox?s father, the late Eugene Cox when he was Finance Minister.