Circumstances in which a person is or is not to be treated as gainfully employed
8.—(1) For the purposes of section 37(1)(b) of the Act (condition of a person being entitled to an invalid care allowance for any day that he is not gainfully employed) a person shall not be treated as gainfully employed on any day in a week unless his earnings in the immediately preceding week have exceeded £6 and subject to paragraph (2) of this regulation, shall be treated as gainfully employed on every day in a week if his earnings in the immediately preceding week have exceeded £6.
(2) There shall be disregarded for the purposes of paragraph (1) above a person's earnings—
(a)for any week which under paragraph (2) of regulation 4 of these regulations is treated as a week in which that person satisfies the requirements of paragraph (1) of that regulation;
(b)for any week as an employed earner if that week is one throughout which he is absent from the employment by virtue of which he is an employed earner with the authority of his employer; and
(c)in the week immediately preceding the week in respect of which that person (if his earnings in the said immediately preceding week were disregarded) would first become entitled to an invalid care allowance in respect of a severely disabled person.
(3) The Social Security Benefit (Computation of Earnings) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 1975(1), except regulations 5 to 7 thereof, shall apply in relation to invalid care allowance as they apply in relation to invalidity pension.