Results 20,141-20,160 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: Not really. An annual report is already conducted that shows poverty rates. We effectively get these reports two years late. We only have the 2014 poverty rates as matters stand.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: I am looking at the amendment requesting an annual report on child poverty rates.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: My apologies. The proposed amendment calls for an annual analysis of child poverty rates and an independent report thereon to be issued to the Minister and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection. There is already independent annual reporting of child poverty rates through the Central Statistics Office survey on income and living conditions, SILC, which is carried out as part of...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: In the Dáil Chamber, Deputy Gino Kenny mentioned the futility of having too many reports. The report on child poverty that gives us the child poverty stats is done by the CSO, which is independent of my Department. That is SILC. We are waiting on the 2015 report, which should be out in the next couple of weeks, and the SIM. All we are going to do is take the cover off it and put our...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: Earlier in the Dáil Chamber, I accepted an amendment that committed us to carrying out an independent and detailed analysis within six months of the whole suite of reforms related to lone parents. Separate from that, the Department is carrying out a focused policy assessment of the back to work family dividend scheme. This assessment is focusing on the rationale underpinning the scheme...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: The focused policy assessment is being done already and it should be ready by the end of quarter one or quarter two of 2017. At that stage, it can be referred to the committee for its deliberations. To answer the Deputy's bigger question, we will need to have a good session at the committee sometime next year on where we are going with the working family payment. The working family payment...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: It does in part. Looking at it, the one that hits me is the reference to poverty rates. It is nearly 2017 and we are working off data for poverty rates from 2014. If one wants a contemporaneous report that tells us something about 2016, it will not be published until 2018 or 2019. That is not particularly useful.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: I move amendment No. 9:In page 8, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following: “Provisions with respect to habitual residence 16. Section 246 of the Principal Act is amended—(a) in subsection (6)—(i) by the substitution of the following paragraph for paragraph (b):“(b) a person who has the right under the European Communities (Free Movement of Persons)...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: In fairness, they are relevant because the amendment deals with the issue of habitual residency. In response to Deputy Willie O'Dea, I am satisfied that there is no policy change with the amendment. What used to be the two-year rule is no more. I only discovered this in my studies in the past couple of months. The two-year rule was overturned by the European Court of Justice in favour...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: No. This amendment relates solely to people who fall under the International Protection Act 2015 such as refugees and asylum seekers, namely, those people who are looking for asylum, refugee status or leave to remain. It would not apply in the case of the Deputy's friend because she is an Irish citizen.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: With regard to the Deputy's comments, being born in the State no longer automatically qualifies a person to Irish citizenship. We held a referendum on that and people voted overwhelmingly to remove that provision. I have noted the Deputy's comments on direct provision and he is correct to say there is no increase provided in the Bill for people in receipt of a direct provision payment. My...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: Yes, on the jobseeker's transitional payment.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy has raised several different issues. I will try and go through them sequentially, if I can, with the exception of the lone-parent issue. That is something we already discussed in detail. Reference was made to the review of the impact on the national minimum wage to income thresholds. We figure we can do a report on that quickly. It is quite straightforward and we could...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: I was coming to that. I was also coming to the issue around most of them being women. Deputy Smith is referring to a system we call averaging. Under averaging, it is not the number of contributions a person has made during the course of her working life that counts, but when she has made them. That is a negative for people who have a gap in employment. This is often, but not always, for...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: It is not my opinion, it is an actuarial review that the Deputy can look at for himself.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: That is true but that does not mean they are right.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: Yes. On the pensions issue, I want and intend to make a change in this area to bring in a system that is fair. However, I am not entirely sure that the solution is only about recognising gaps where somebody was a home-maker. There may be other legitimate reasons for people having gaps in their contributions records. For example, they may have been profoundly ill for a period and not in a...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: Only for children under 12.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: One can only sign on for credits if one has an insurance record to protect.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2016)

Leo Varadkar: Yes, but the point I have tried to make is that there are a number of these issues. Deputy Bríd Smith is referring to one particular group of people who are raising an anomaly but there are lots of other similar issues and anomalies when it comes to calculating the contributory State pension. We could create more anomalies by closing one anomaly in isolation.