Results 21,481-21,500 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: It applies essentially to public servants. Probably the better known examples of public servants who potentially have significant private income would be some of the people working in the medical and allied fields. They have one income stream from employment in the public service and might have another significant income stream, for example, from rents, other employments or offices they...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: Yes.

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: It is not intended to so apply. As I previously advised the House, the advisory group on tax and social welfare is completing work on the provision of PRSI entitlements and contributions for self-employed persons. There has been quite a demand from self-employed persons to be able to apply for social insurance coverage. For a contribution of 4% for the required number of years they receive...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: Yes. As I said, these issues are all being examined in detail by the advisory group. We have the self-employed; we also have people in atypical employment with a very low number of contract hours. We have a series of issues regarding a properly funded and properly based social insurance system. As a country, we also have to adapt to changing work patterns. Many people who are retiring...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: No; I will take into account what the Senator has said. I brought in the partial capacity benefit in February 2012. It had been talked about for a long time and is a very positive change in the social welfare system. It is the norm in social welfare legislation to provide for an appeals mechanism at a point where a decision is being made; therefore, that is the purpose of the provision....

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: We discussed the situation in relation to retained firefighters on Second Stage in the House. Nationally, there are approximately 2,000 retained firefighters outside our larger cities in which there are typically full-time fire services. Retained firefighters are vitally important to their communities. Typically, these workers provide services in rural and less densely populated areas, but...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: Yes. The provision will commence as soon as we have the legislation in place. I am happy that after a very long period, we have been able to work out something that was causing genuine hardship. It is a critically important that this service should be available, particularly in rural communities. Perhaps the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government will change its...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: The Senator raised these questions on Second Stage last Thursday. I assure her that time spent in receipt of the one-parent family payment will count in satisfying requirements for continued payment of qualified child increases where the child is in full-time education up to the age of 22 years. I agree with her that the fuel allowance is of great importance to many welfare recipients,...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: The payment of child benefit is separate from the issue of one-parent family payments. The conditionality attached to child benefit stands alone and the scheme applies up to the age of 18 years. It does not cross over to the issues raised by Senator Katherine Zappone. Child benefit ceases at the age of 18 years.

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: Potentially, if they are in full-time education. The purpose of transferring to the transitional jobseeker's payment is to reflect what happens in other jurisdictions which have better child poverty outcomes and to provide a positive framework to encourage lone parents to return to education, training and employment once the youngest child is settled in school. The purpose of the...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: I thank the Senator for raising the issue. The welfare and well-being of professional actors and other creative professionals are important in terms of the status of the arts. In general, if an unemployed person has a particular job such as acting, it is understood initially by the deciding officer that he or she will try to obtain further employment in his or her specific area. However,...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: The part of FÁS that has come to the Department of Social Protection is the employment services side. The training side has stayed within the Department of Education and Skills, to which it was transferred by the previous Government. I do not believe we have any connection there. If the Irish Film Board wants to approach my Department with specific proposals, it should do so. On...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: I assure the Senator that there is no provision for charging individuals for the furnishing, replacement or renewal of a public services card. We have rolled out more than 250,000 of the cards thus far, mainly to new applications and in the jobseeker's area in particular, the intention being to roll out the scheme to other social welfare clients in due course. We are entering into an...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: We have been working with the various transport companies to devise a series of on-the-spot checks. We have a facility whereby a travel card which seems to be fraudulent - some of the ones I have seen are merely cheap photocopies in a plastic wallet - can be checked to verify the authenticity of the number. There has been quite a lot of that type of activity on several of the transport...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: As we know from our experience of the bank guarantee and the range of taxes and changes which flowed from it, there is nothing fixed under the heavens when it comes to social welfare and taxation. There is no provision for the charge to which the Senator has alluded. Moreover, even if such a provision were included in the Bill, it would be open to any future Minister to amend it. In short,...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: I thank Senators for their comments. I assure them that I value the arrangements in regard to free travel, as do pensioners. The bottom line is that abuse of the scheme undermines the benefit for everybody. The provisions in this Bill will ultimately protect the integrity of the scheme. As to why a public services card was not introduced before now, I cannot answer. It has been discussed...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: It was talked about for a long period before that. We are now, finally, in the process of implementing it. If we had opted for another system, that would have meant further delays leaving, in a way, the best being the enemy of the good. What we are now rolling out is a data card which has the capacity to hold substantial amounts of data. Therefore, other Departments will be in a position,...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: Yes. The registration process is called Safe. With regard to older people and the query raised by Senator Moloney, we are making arrangements for older people. We hope to have most of the cards rolled out by the end of next year. Our target to the end of this year is 600,000 cards and we are well on target to achieve that or even go beyond it. When the Safe registration process is...

Seanad: Social Welfare and Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: Therefore, we check the photograph against the database and if somebody appears to be registered with the service elsewhere, for example in Tallaght, but also pops up in Carrick-on-Shannon, Killarney or elsewhere, the message will be transmitted that this appears to be the same person, giving rise to a query. Staff in social welfare offices have told me that sometimes when people are invited...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Unemployment Statistics (25 Jun 2013)

Joan Burton: The definition of unemployment used in the above-mentioned survey is self-defined unemployment as opposed to the stricter definition used by the ILO. While the methods used in the survey can be questioned (e.g. door-to-door surveys can capture less employed people as they are more likely to be out at work) and recent Live Register figures show that there has been a 4.8% decrease in the...