Results 281-300 of 16,601 for speaker:Dara Calleary

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Fuel Allowance scheme is a means-tested payment to assist pensioners and other long-term social welfare dependent householders with their winter heating costs. The payment is made over the winter season - from September to April - at the weekly rate of €33.00 or, if preferred, by way of two lump sum instalments - one in September and one in January. Only one Fuel Allowance is...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Code (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government commits that the new Working Age Payment will ensure that individuals will always see an increase in income when they work or take on additional hours. It will do this by will addressing inconsistencies and anomalies in the current Jobseekers Allowance Scheme which may discourage people from taking up employment. My officials are currently exploring a range of...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: I am aware of the research carried out by the Irish Cancer Society on the reported energy hardship in households in which people are receiving palliative care. I am committed to working towards solutions to support this cohort of people. In July of this year, I met with officials from the Irish Cancer Society to discuss their concerns and also to discuss the challenges in relation to...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The objective of the School Meals Programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement. Under the School Meals Programme, the primary relationship is between the school and supplier. My...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: Oral hearings on social welfare appeals can be held virtually, in person or by phone. There have been a total of 103 oral hearings completed by the Social Welfare Appeals Office as of the end of Quarter 2 2025. The breakdown of the different types of oral hearings completed is as follows: There have been 34 oral hearings held virtually. There have been 17 oral hearings held...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Fuel Allowance scheme is a means-tested payment to assist pensioners and other long-term social welfare dependent householders with their winter heating costs. The payment is made over the winter season from September to April at the weekly rate of €33.00 or, if preferred, by way of two lump sum instalments, one in September and one in January. Only one Fuel Allowance is payable...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce the Automatic Enrolment (AE) Retirement Savings System. The aim of introducing AE is to address the pension coverage gap that exists in Ireland and to provide workers with greater comfort and security regarding their retirement income. The new system - to be known as My Future Fund - will commence from 1 January 2026. The...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The number of Jobseeker's Allowance and Jobseeker's Benefit claims where the employment immediately prior to the claim commencement was in Sector A - Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing (based on NACE Rev 2.1) are set out in the table below. Please note these numbers refer to recipients, not applicants, as this data is only available for awarded claims. Year Recipients ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Budget 2026 (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Government acknowledges the valuable role that family carers play and remains fully committed to supporting carers in that role. The Carer’s Allowance scheme is the main scheme by which the Department provides income support to carers. In 2025 the expenditure on the Carer’s Allowance scheme is estimated to be over €1.24 billion. There are currently almost...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Free Travel scheme provides free travel on the main public transport services and on private transport services operating the Free Travel scheme. As part of Budget 2025, my government announced that from September 2025, all those in receipt of Free Travel aged 70 years or over will have an entitlement to a Free Travel Companion Public Services Card (PSC). The effective date of this...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Child Poverty (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The setting of a new and ambitious Child Poverty Target is a commitment set out in the Programme for Government 2025: Securing Ireland’s Future. This commitment is also set out in the Government’s national strategy to reduce poverty, the Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025. On 10th September last, based on these commitments, and a public consultation process that took...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce the Automatic Enrolment (AE) Retirement Savings System. The aim of introducing AE is to address the pension coverage gap that exists in Ireland and to provide workers with greater comfort and security regarding their retirement income. The new system - to be known as My Future Fund - will commence from 1 January 2026. ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The objective of the School Meals Programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement. The Nutritional Standards for School Meals have been in place since the scheme's inception and were...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The objective of the School Meals Programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement. My department provides the funding directly to the school. The primary relationship is between the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government includes the commitment to explore a targeted child benefit payment and examine the interaction this would have with existing targeted supports like the Working Family and Child Support Payments. Officials in my Department are working on this commitment. Child Benefit is a monthly payment to families with children up to the age of 16 years. The payment...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The State Pension (Contributory) is funded by the contributions paid into the Social Insurance Fund. In general, a person will qualify for State Pension (Contributory) if they are aged 66 or over and have between 520 and 2080, or more, reckonable contributions (of which 520 must be full-rate social insurance (PRSI) contributions). There are no issues or delays relating to An Post employees...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Government acknowledges the valuable role that family carers play and remains fully committed to supporting carers in that role. The Carer’s Allowance scheme is the main scheme by which the Department provides income support to carers. In 2025 the expenditure on the Carer’s Allowance scheme is estimated to be over €1.24 billion. There are currently almost 102,000...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Rights of People with Disabilities (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government includes a range of commitments in relation to supports for disabled people. This includes a commitment to introducing a permanent Annual Cost of Disability Support Payment with a view to incrementally increasing this payment. However, we know that addressing the cost of disability is not a question of income support alone. The delivery of and access to...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Rights of People with Disabilities (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government includes a range of commitments in relation to supports for disabled people. In addition, earlier this month, the Government published the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030. This is Ireland’s plan to advance the realisation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The publication of this...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (25 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Yearly Average (YA) method of calculating State Pension (Contributory) payment rates has been used since the introduction of the contributory Old Age Pension (now State Pension (Contributory)) in 1961. The YA system measures the frequency rather than the number of contribution. The YA is calculated by dividing the total number of contributions accumulated during a person’s...