Results 2,621-2,640 of 4,893 for speaker:Séamus Brennan

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (13 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: Recipients of Social Welfare or Health Service Executive payments who have been prescribed a special diet as a result of a specified medical condition, and whose means are insufficient to meet their needs, may qualify for a diet supplement under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme. This scheme and related supplements are administered on my behalf by the Community Welfare division of...

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (13 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which includes rent supplement, is administered on my behalf by the Community Welfare division of the Health Service Executive. Neither I nor my Department has any function in relation to decisions on individual claims. The Health Service Executive has advised that the correct rate of rent supplement is in payment based on the information it has...

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (13 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The question refers to a situation where a person is not eligible for the respite care grant because she is employed for more than 15 hours per week. From June 2005, the annual respite care grant was extended to all carers who are providing full-time care to a person who needs such care regardless of their income or whether they are in receipt of carer's allowance or carer's benefit. This...

Written Answers — Departmental Staff: Departmental Staff (13 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: There are currently 66 Social Welfare Branch Offices at various locations throughout the country. Each Branch Office is operated and managed by a Branch Manager who is required to act as an agent for the Department in the area served by the office. Under the terms and conditions of their appointment Branch Managers are required to provide suitable premises and such clerical support as may be...

Written Answers — Ombudsman Services: Ombudsman Services (14 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The Pensions Ombudsman, Mr Paul Kenny, was appointed on the 28th April 2003 and his office commenced operations in September of that year. Under the Pensions Act the Pensions Ombudsman has the power to investigate and determine; complaints made by or on behalf of beneficiaries of occupational pension schemes or Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs) who allege that they have suffered...

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (14 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The carer's allowance is a social assistance payment which provides income support to people who are providing certain elderly or incapacitated persons with full time care and attention and whose incomes fall below a certain limit. The primary objective of the social welfare system is to provide income support and, as a general rule, only one weekly social welfare payment is payable to an...

Written Answers — Departmental Schemes: Departmental Schemes (14 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The Free Travel scheme is available to all people living in the State aged 66 years, or over, to all carers in receipt of Carer's Allowance and to carers of people in receipt of Constant Attendance or Prescribed Relative's Allowance. The scheme is also available to certain people with disabilities and people who are in receipt of certain social welfare payments. People who are in receipt of a...

Written Answers — National Car Test: National Car Test (14 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The issue of fees charged for the National Car Test and any special arrangements in relation to them would be a matter for my colleague, the Minister for Transport. There are, to my knowledge, no plans at present for arrangements on the lines proposed.

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (14 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which includes rent supplement, is administered on my behalf by the Community Welfare Division of the Health Service Executive. Neither I nor my Department has any function in relation to decisions on individual claims. The Executive has advised that a rent supplement application was received from the person concerned on 6th October 2005 but it has...

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (14 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The number of Disability Allowance claims awaiting decision was 4,443 on 2nd June 2006. In addition 198 decisions made on disability allowance claims were in the course of being notified to the applicants concerned on that date. To put those data in perspective, just over 20,000 claims were received in 2005, while almost 7,700 claims were received in the first five months of 2006. Entitlement...

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (14 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: Child dependant allowances are paid in addition to weekly social welfare payments in respect of over 256,700 children at full rate and almost 84,500 at half rate. The rate of child dependant allowance was last increased in 1994. The current rates of payment are EUR16.80, EUR19.30 and EUR21.60. The following appendix shows the rates of child dependant allowance for each scheme. The policy...

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (14 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: To qualify for unemployment payments a person must have lost employment and must satisfy the conditions of being available for and genuinely seeking work. Subject to certain conditions it is possible for a person to qualify for payment for part of a week while being employed for the rest of the week. Special arrangements exist in relation to systematic short-time working where this occurs in...

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (15 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The aim of the national fuel scheme is to assist householders on long-term social welfare or health service executive payments with meeting the cost of their additional heating needs during the winter season. Fuel allowances are paid for 29 weeks from end-September to mid-April. The allowance represents a contribution towards a person's normal heating expenses. The scheme has been improved in...

Written Answers — Departmental Correspondence: Departmental Correspondence (15 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: A total of 6 mailshots have issued to Child Benefit recipients in the past 5 years, resulting in some EUR 22m being saved. A single claim termination can result in annual savings of up to EUR 10,000. Use of mailshots is one of a number of communications methods used by my Department. Apart from informing customers of developments which affect them, there is also a significant control benefit...

Social Welfare Benefits. (20 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The recent value for money examination undertaken by the Comptroller and Auditor General looked at the rent supplement scheme during the period 2000-05. It did not examine the overall supplementary welfare allowance scheme. The report found that expenditure rose substantially during that period, reaching €369 million in 2005, while recipient numbers rose by 38% to more than 60,000. One...

Social Welfare Benefits. (20 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The first question I have is on rent supplement. If the House is agreed I shall complete this question and return to Question No. 45.

Social Welfare Benefits. (20 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: The first question listed on the Order Paper concerns checks and balances in the operation in the Department. These questions are out of order, so I shall obviously have to work with them. The first question put down for me today deals with checks and balances. I shall continue with my reply to that one, if that is all right. The primary objective of the Department's information policy is to...

Social Welfare Benefits. (20 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: Nobody should receive a payment to which he or she is not entitled. People sometimes retain payments to which they have lost entitlement owing to increased income and so on. They are required to notify the Department of such information and sometimes they fail to do so. We recovered in excess of €400 million from our different checks, balances, surveys and control measures to ensure that...

Social Welfare Benefits. (20 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: Absolutely. The Department takes a strong line on that. We must distinguish between outright fraud, where people set out to give the Department false information or fail to give information, and genuine departmental errors or errors made by the applicant. The Deputy has regularly asked me about the money we spend on our computer systems. He is probably surprised how significant it is. A huge...

Anti-Poverty Strategy. (20 Jun 2006)

Séamus Brennan: This question relates to a study, the title of which includes the words "Day In, Day Out" which is a good phrase to use in regard to politics. I recently launched the Combat Poverty Agency study on the dynamics of child poverty. The study's key findings are that children tend to move in and out of poverty and that child poverty, and its duration, are affected by a wide range of factors,...