Results 721-740 of 16,601 for speaker:Dara Calleary

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Staff (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The table below details the number of full-time equivalent staff directly employed by my department, broken down by grade, as at 7th July 2025. Grade FTE Secretary General 1.00 Deputy Secretary 1.00 Assistant Secretary 10.00 Principal Officer1 100.00 ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Information and Communications Technology (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department is in the process of drafting an IT Skills Strategy, in order to continually enhance our internal IT capacity and build a highly skilled workforce to deliver the Department's strategic objectives. This includes support for cybersecurity, autonomy and crisis management.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: Disability Allowance (DA) is a weekly allowance paid to people with a specified disability who are aged 16 or over and under the age of 66. This disability must be expected to last for at least one year and the allowance is subject to a medical assessment, means test and Habitual Residency conditions. The processing time for individual DA claims may vary in accordance with their relative...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The estimated cost of providing a 100% Christmas Bonus to recipients of long-term social welfare payments is €360.15 million. This estimate is costed on the same basis as the Christmas Bonus paid in December 2024 and is based on the estimated number of recipients at the end of 2025. It should be noted that this costing is subject to change in the context of emerging trends and...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The estimated annual cost of increasing the Child Support Payment for U12s by €6, from €50 to €56, is €52.5 million. The estimated annual cost of increasing the Child Support Payment for U12s by €10, from €50 to €60, is €87.6 million. The estimated annual cost of increasing the Child Support Payment for children aged 12 and over by...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The free travel scheme provides free travel on the main public and private transport services for those eligible under the scheme. These include road, rail and ferry services provided by companies such as Bus Átha Cliath, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann, as well as Luas and services provided by over 70 private transport operators. Over 1,135,000 people have direct...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance scheme provides a once-off payment to eligible families to assist with the costs of clothing and footwear when children start or return to school each autumn. The scheme operates from June to September each year. The rates of payment for the 2025 scheme are €160 for children aged between 4 and 11 years and €285 for children...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme is the safety net within the overall social welfare system in that it provides assistance to eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their needs and those of their dependants. Under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme, my department may make Additional Needs Payments to help meet essential expenses that a person...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government 2025 has committed to expand the eligibility for the Fuel Allowance to families in receipt of the Working Family Payment. The estimated annual cost of extending eligibility to all Working Family Payment recipients is €39.7 million, covering a full fuel season. This costing is based on the estimated average number of recipients in 2025, and is subject to...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: I propose to take Questions Nos. 1870 and 1871 together. The cost of increasing the Fuel Allowance by €5 and €10 is as follows: Weekly Increase to Rate of Fuel Allowance Number of Weeks Payable Number of Claims Estimated Additional Yearly Cost €5 28 415,000 €58.1m ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government commits to introducing a permanent Annual Cost of Disability Support Payment with a view to incrementally increasing this payment. We have also made commitments in relation to the rate of the Disability Allowance payment. The long-term disability income supports in my Department are Disability Allowance, Blind Pension, Invalidity Pension and Partial Capacity...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Community Welfare Services (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: A Community Welfare Officer is at Higher Executive Officer (HEO) civil service grade. The entry point of the HEO pay scale is €58,264 per annum. Therefore, the basic salary cost of every additional ten Community Welfare Officers is €582,640.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: Customers in receipt of the Jobseekers Transitional Payment can engage in education, training or employment without it affecting their payment, as long as they continue to satisfy the means test, subject to an earnings disregard. Recipients of the payment are supported by the Department to enter or return to employment and/or to undertake educational and training programmes, through the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The estimated cost of the provision of the Living Alone Increase at the current rate of €22 per week to all those in receipt of One Parent Family Payment (OPFP) would be as follows: Scheme Yearly Rate of LAI Number of Additional Beneficiaries Additional Yearly Cost Living Alone Increase €1,144 43,322 ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The estimated cost of increasing the Living Alone Allowance by €1 is €13.1 million. This represents an increase in the weekly rate from €22 to €23. The above costing is on a full-year basis and is based on the estimated number of recipients in 2025. It should be noted that this costing is subject to change in the context of emerging trends and associated...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The estimated annual cost of increasing the Carer's Support Grant by €150, from €2,000 to €2,150 is €25.1 million. This costing is based on the estimated average number of recipients in 2025, and is subject to change in light of emerging trends and subsequent revision of the estimated number of recipients.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The full year cost of increasing the Working Family Payment income thresholds is difficult to estimate with accuracy given the dynamics of the labour market and wage fluctuations. It is also challenging to forecast the number of new claimants who would avail of the payment as a result of the increased threshold. Based on information currently available to my department, the estimated...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The 2024 Annual Statistics Report states that Child Benefit was paid for 46,372 children between the ages of zero and one over the course of 2024. Assuming that a similar number of eligible children were to be born in 2026, and that all children concerned were single births, the estimated cost of paying Child Benefit from the month of birth is in the region of €6.5 million per year,...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: Age-related rates apply to 18 to 24 year olds in receipt of the means-tested Jobseeker's Allowance scheme. Age-related reduced rates on Jobseeker's Allowance are designed to prevent long-term welfare dependency. If a young jobseeker participates in education or training, they receive up to the maximum personal rate of Jobseeker’s Allowance of €244. If they participate on...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (29 Jul 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Back to Education Allowance provides income support for jobseekers and others in receipt of certain social welfare payments who pursue courses of education at further or higher level, at a cost of almost €30 million in 2025. The Cost of Education allowance of €500 per academic year is payable to households in receipt of Back to Education Allowance who have a qualified...