The reality is the current system is only a stop gap and provided for those who have contributed the minimum entitlements in their home country and are then, if they are involuntarily unemployed eligible for unemployment assistance for 3 months under the E303 route, assuming that they have been registered at least 2 months in their home country as being unemployed. This system is in place for the sole reason to stop unemployed persons in one region moving to another to extract better benefits.
In Dermots case from what I hear he had not worked in Ireland and had not contributed to the PRSI fund to in fact be entitled to any funds under the E303 scheme. I'll not quote directives here, as well without going trawling I'd be miss misquoting myself, but at any one time the person must be covered by at most one social insurance fund. In Dermots, the Kela will try and disprove that they are responsible for him saying that he is still and should be covered by the Department of Social affairs in Ireland.
Secondly Dusty_bin, I agreed with allot of what you said. But to get a few things straight, Dermot has not been the first, nor will he be the last to have only posted wrt to his entitlements or not as the case maybe to Kela assistance. Nor was he the first person to up and leave a style of life that may have been a whole lot easier for him than moving to Finland. Being Irish myself I can all to well understand to benefits of living in Finland over that of Ireland, but searching for employment is not one of them. Maybe Dermot was the sraw that broke the camels back, but I look forward to your Ann Widicombe styled rants on similar issues

Lastly Dermot, I wish you the best of luck and it sounds as if you may need it. I think you'll have to be realistic as to how far you can activiely pursue your choosen career in the arts. Two of my sisters (one a music teacher, the other a stage actor) have pursued careers along these routes for a few years now. The facts are that 92%(cite: A Recent survey of both France and the UK combined) of people in this industry do not find fulltime work in their profession. I think you're mistaken if you think this will be easier in Finland than in Ireland, or anywhere else for that matter. Unfortunately motivation and determination are not enough, once when this board was on Smartgroups a member who had struggled for 2.5 years finally gave up citing that his financial health was part and parcel of his relationships health. Its something you'll have to be aware of. Best of luck,
James