Results 22,201-22,220 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Tax and Social Welfare Codes (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: We do care as a Government and I certainly care. We have child benefit in Ireland, which is at the higher end of child benefit payments throughout the world. It is universal and does not make any distinction between parents who decide to parent at home or those who decide to or have to work outside the home. It is not always a decision to have two incomes. Some people have to do so...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Tax and Social Welfare Codes (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: The direction of travel in terms of parental leave, if I have any influence over it, is that there should be more and a couple should be able to share it. It is important that there always be dedicated maternal leave for particular reasons, but couples should be allowed some flexibility in how they use their parental leave. If we can afford it, through a far more modern social insurance...

Other Questions: Community Employment Schemes Places (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 31, 79 and 95 together. As the Deputies will be aware, my Department provides a range of activation supports catering for long-term unemployed jobseekers and those most distant from the labour market. These supports include the JobPath service and the community employment programme. The JobPath service aims to place people in full-time sustainable...

Other Questions: Community Employment Schemes Places (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Nearly 100,000 people have been referred to JobPath, but the Deputy did not mention that 25,000 of them are now in full-time employment, which is to be celebrated. They are older people, or even younger people, who have acquired a new skill and are now as a result in full-time employment. They include lone parents who have overcome many barriers to employment. There are also people who...

Other Questions: Community Employment Schemes Places (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: The proposal I am making in regard to community employment schemes is to relax the rules and widen the pool of people who can qualify. If there are supervisors who are opposed to that, it is news to me. I have come across supervisors who believe it does not go far enough but I have not come across anyone who is actively opposed to the measure I am putting in place, which is to widen the...

Other Questions: Community Employment Schemes Places (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I am not really sure what Deputy Brady was referring to when he spoke about jobseekers not being suitable for employment. If I said something like that, I would be accused of all sorts of calumny. The usual left-wing commentators and the usual suspects on Twitter would probably be in a frenzy this minute if the words the Deputy used in the past five minutes came out of my mouth. Of...

Other Questions: Treatment Benefit Scheme Eligibility (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: As outlined in the programme for Government and announced in budget 2017, I have extended eligibility to the treatment benefit scheme to include the self-employed, who were not previously covered. From 27 March, self-employed contributors with sufficient PRSI contributions at class S, or class S combined with other previously reckonable classes of PRSI, are entitled to a range of...

Other Questions: Treatment Benefit Scheme Eligibility (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: What I have found really heartening about the current contest under way in my party is the number of people talking about ideas and the number of people talking about my ideas and who have read my paper. I am very grateful that Deputy Willie O'Dea took the time out to do so. He asked a pertinent question. It is, of course, an ideas paper, which is what it says on the cover. It is not a...

Other Questions: Treatment Benefit Scheme Eligibility (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I do not have the invalidity pension figure off the top of my head, but if I remember correctly, in the budget negotiations, we were estimating that it could cost as much as €80 million in a full year. I do not believe that is going to be the case but I respect the fact that my officials tend to be cautious when it comes to these calculations. Often, they perhaps estimate that things...

Other Questions: Family Income Supplement (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: The family income supplement, FIS, is an in-work support that provides an income top-up for employees on low earnings with children. FIS is designed to prevent in-work poverty for low-paid workers with child dependants and to offer a financial incentive to take up employment. There are currently almost 57,000 families with more than 126,000 children in receipt of FIS. The estimated spend...

Other Questions: Family Income Supplement (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: As I outlined in the answer, the reason is not solely the increase in employment. That is only part of the reason. There are a number of other factors that have given rise to the increase in the number of people in receipt of the family income supplement. The decision made in 2016 to change the thresholds meant that more people were eligible for it, as one would expect. The information...

Other Questions: Family Income Supplement (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: The difficulty in having pre-formed ideas and pre-prepared supplementary questions is that the Deputy then runs into a problem when he does not actually hear or like the answer to the question. We both agree that the fall in unemployment and the rise in employment is not the sole reason why the number of people on FIS has increased. There are other factors. We have changed the...

Other Questions: Social Welfare Benefits Eligibility (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: There are no plans to change the system of assessment for eligibility for either disability or carer’s allowance. Helping and supporting people with disabilities to access employment and so enhance their independence is one of the most important and challenging policy issues we face. The recently published Make Work Pay report produced by an interdepartmental group included a number...

Other Questions: Social Welfare Benefits Eligibility (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: As the Deputy will know and appreciate, those assessments are not done by me or even my officials. They are done by the medical assessors who work on behalf of the Department to assess the extent to which somebody has a disability or is in need of full-time care. I acknowledge where the Deputy is coming from and his point is very valid. The tradition in Ireland has been to assess a...

Other Questions: Social Welfare Benefits Eligibility (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: It is a cross-departmental report so it involves my Department, the Minister of State for disability issues and the Minister for Health. There are four big ones in my Department. We have already done the one on the free travel pass. That has already been implemented and provides for five years. The one on the requirement that the work be rehabilitative has effectively been done on an...

Other Questions: JobPath Implementation (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 35 and 40 together. The aim of the JobPath service, which is provided for jobseekers only, is to assist them in finding sustainable full-time paid employment. Community employment schemes are different. They provide part-time work experience and training opportunities in local communities as a stepping stone back to employment for people on a range of...

Other Questions: JobPath Implementation (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy for her very kind words. It has been a pleasure to visit her constituency on a number of occasions in the past few weeks.

Other Questions: JobPath Implementation (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I was in Bailieborough recently and I was in Cootehill last night recently to meet some-----

Other Questions: JobPath Implementation (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Blanchardstown is not at all far from Cavan.

Other Questions: JobPath Implementation (31 May 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Indeed, which will not be forgotten. If I have the opportunity to lead in the future-----