Results 21,601-21,620 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: It is because, as a Department, we absorb it into the Estimates. We do not make an issue of it; we just do it, and absorb it into the Estimates. That was done in previous Administrations. It is the correct thing to do. An alternative system of government accounting in other jurisdictions, which I am not advocating, could involve cash limits on the total spend in a particular area. If...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: To answer the Deputy, we anticipate that and the CSO gives us the figures, so it is not a surprise. We know about it and we factor it into the base. In other words, to use the Deputy's example, if we are catering this year for 400,000 pensions and we know there will be an increase to 415,000 pensioners, we factor that into the baseline Estimates of the Department. However - this is the...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: Yes.
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: Yes.
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: I will answer Deputy Daly's last point first. We do not have those figures to hand but we will supply them to the Deputy.
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: I shall respond to the general control questions posed by Deputy Ó Snodaigh. The savings target for 2013 is €710 million. As he said, the ambition is higher than it was last year by €40 million. In other words, there is an increase of €40 million on what was achieved in 2012. Every year we have increased the number of reviews with a consequent prevention of...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: Being at risk of poverty is a broad and easily understood concept but the Department's social inclusion unit has a number of national renowned experts in the technical measurement of same. They work in conjunction with the European organisations on European data. Of course the major analysis and collection of the data is normally done by the CSO and the Survey of Income and Living...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: Yes. The OECD produced a pensions report. Perhaps the committee could set time aside for a briefing.
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: The Department will provide a very detailed briefing on its three recent reports. The OECD has an expertise in the area and has long advised us on systems for education, health and social protection, how we compare with the most developed countries in the world and how we might improve our different systems. We commissioned the OECD report which stated that Ireland has done well with its...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: Yes.
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: As the Deputy has said, there has been an estimated fall in the live register from an average of 437,300 in 2012 to an estimated 431,000 in 2013. Some €42.5 million is due to the transferring of funding from jobseeker's to the working age employment support programme to provide for an additional 10,000 activation places by the end of 2013 and the Budget 2013 measure which reduced the...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: I refer to the average time taken to process a jobseeker's allowance. The target is 90% within six weeks. In 2012, 76% was achieved. In 2013, we are on 82%. One of the significant reasons for the improvement is the new system in the Intreo offices which is being rolled out. I do not know if the Deputy has had an opportunity to visit an Intreo office yet. I extended an invitation to the...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: For the better, I hope.
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: That is important to the staff in the Department because they have been on the front line of people losing their jobs, often arriving in great distress. The staff try very hard to give a good service to people. Public servants come in for a lot of knocks and it is important to acknowledge it when people improve services and do their best for people. They are not perfect and we have much...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: In regard to the number of offices, the delivery of more than 60 Intreo offices is a major logistical property project for the Department of Social Protection and the managers of this process, the OPW, which is responsible for the provision of the Department's property requirements, including refurbishment and fit-out works. The new offices allow people more dignity and they can have more...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: What did he work at?
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: How long, roughly, has he been without work?
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: I will take Deputy Butler's question first and then move on to the others. We took roughly 1,000 staff who had formerly worked in the HSE, either as community welfare officers or as staff assisting community welfare officers. When that happened we took over approximately 700 locations from which they provided community welfare services, often for one or two hours a week in 700 different...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: Approximately 3,000 staff have now been deployed to do the ordinary, day-to-day work. This figure includes the additional 1,700 staff to whom I referred. As Deputy Willie O'Dea may be aware from conversations with people in Limerick, we have decided to integrate the FÁS service in order that it is no longer a stand-alone service run by former FÁS personnel. Similarly, the...
- Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (26 Jun 2013) Joan Burton: In regard to Deputy Brendan Ryan's question about the unemployed bricklayer, approximately 100,000 unemployed persons were formerly involved in construction related activity. The unemployment statistics indicate these individuals are mostly men who worked hard in construction jobs and made good money when times were good. It is a major challenge to find them satisfying and interesting work...