Results 121-140 of 16,601 for speaker:Dara Calleary

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: Carer’s Benefit is a payment for insured people who may be required to leave the workforce or reduce their working hours to care for a person(s) in need of full-time care. To qualify, an applicant must satisfy PRSI conditions, employment conditions, show that they are providing full-time care and attention and that the care recipient requires full-time care and attention. On the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: I propose to take Questions Nos. 599 and 600 together. The Department is committed to ensuring that only those people who are eligible, receive welfare and other payments. Achieving this requires that robust safeguards are in place that secure our payment systems, detect possible fraud and error, and prevent possible fraudulent claiming. All applicants must provide proof of their...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Household Benefits Package comprises the electricity or gas allowance, and the free television licence. My Department will spend approximately €308 million this year on the Household Benefits Package. The Programme for Government includes a commitment to examine key ancillary benefits such as the Fuel Allowance, Household Benefits Package and Living Alone Increase to support...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The person concerned submitted an application for Jobseekers Allowance on 13/08/2025. Jobseekers Allowance has been awarded from 01/08/2025 at €244.00 per week. The first payment, including arrears will be available to the person concerned into their nominated back account on the 30/09/2025. A notification of this decision was been sent on 25/09/2025. I trust this clarifies...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: I propose to take Questions Nos. 603 to 614, inclusive, together. The Department is committed to providing a quality service to its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible. Processing times vary across schemes, depending on the differing eligibility criteria. Schemes that require a high level of...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Supplementary Welfare Allowance (SWA) scheme is the safety net within the overall social welfare system and helps eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their needs and those of their dependents. Supports available under the SWA scheme, can consist of a basic weekly payment, as well as single Additional Needs Payments (ANPs). The SWA scheme is administered by...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: Bereaved Parent Grant (formerly known as Widowed Parent Grant) is a once off grant for widows, widowers, surviving civil partner's or surviving qualified cohabitants, who have one or more dependent children residing with them. In order to qualify for this grant, a person must be entitled to, or in receipt of Bereaved Partner's Contributory Pension, One Parent Family Payment, Death Benefit...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Children in Care (30 Sep 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. In order to qualify for Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance, an applicant must satisfy a number of qualifying...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Children in Care (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: Carer's allowance (CA) is a means-tested social assistance payment made to a person who is habitually resident in the State and who is providing full-time care and attention to a child or an adult who has such a disability that, as a result, they require that level of care. Foster carers may qualify for the range of carer related income supports including CA if they satisfy the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Children in Care (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: Matters relating to foster carers, previously foster parents, are the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality. This Government acknowledges the important role that carers, including foster carers, play and remains fully committed to supporting them. The State Pension (Contributory) system already provides a range of measures to recognise caring...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government has clearly set out a timeline which commits to significantly increasing the income disregards for Carer’s Allowance in each Budget with a view to phasing out the means test during the lifetime of the Government. It is important to note that the process of easing the means test has already begun. The latest change occurred in July when the weekly...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Expenditure (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The amount the Department expended on cloud storage solutions over the past five years and to date in 2025, is highlighted in the tabular format below: Year Amount 2021 €2,000 2022 €4,000 2023 €6,000 2024 €53,000 2025 ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The person concerned applied for Jobseekers Allowance on the 01/07/2025. The weekly means in this case were assessed at €179 which is in excess of €153.70, the weekly rate for a person in their circumstances. Means in this case were derived from parental income as the customer is under 25 and living at home. The disallowance letter was issued on the 17/07/2025. If the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (30 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 programme is designed so that meals are provided by contracted food business operators. This...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department does not collate statistics with the level of detail requested by the Deputy. Breakdowns by refusal reasons for Maternity Benefit claims, or those involving full-time PhD researchers or scholarship holders are not available. The overall number of Maternity Benefit claims, and the number and outcome of Maternity Benefit appeals, by year, are provided in the tables below. ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: Persons in full time education including, those studying for a PhD. can maintain their social insurance record so they can continue to be eligible for social insurance benefits in two ways, either through credited employment contributions (credits) or voluntary contributions. The primary purpose of credits is to preserve the continuity of a person’s insurance record during periods...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: Statistics on fuel allowance recipients by qualifying primary payment and by age group are published annually in the Department's Annual Statistics Report. The report is available through my Department's statistics landing page, gov.ie/dsp/statistics. The number of Recipients of Fuel Allowance by Primary Payment at the end of 2023 and 2024 is shown in the table below. The methodology for...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: I propose to take Questions Nos. 627, 628, 630, 631 and 632 together. 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,...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: Statistics on fuel allowance recipients by county are published annually in the Department's Annual Statistics Report. It is not possible to break down fuel allowance recipients by local authority area as this data is not held by my Department; a table showing the county-breakdown at the end of 2024 is provided below. Expenditure is recorded at the scheme level, not the individual level....

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (30 Sep 2025)

Dara Calleary: The cost of increasing the Fuel Allowance by €10 and €15 and €20 is as follows: - Weekly Increase to the Fuel Allowance Payment Number of Weeks Payable Number of Recipients Estimated Additional Cost €10 28 410,000 €114.8 million €15 28 410,000 ...