Results 26,581-26,600 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: This is an important point and I thank Senator Moloney. The key point is that funerals, particularly in the Dublin area, are extraordinarily expensive. Thankfully this trend has not been as extreme outside of Dublin. Recently somebody was telling me about the cost of placing a small urn containing the ashes of a loved one in a family grave. The family members thought they would be able...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: The Deputy will understand that as people on the live register go back to work, the actual level of claims on some of the Department's payment schemes has been falling. I am happy to say that unless the Deputy has personal experience as a representative of individual constituents who have had issues, we have not received any complaints. On the contrary, I am personally aware of important...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: I was at a farm last night and they were doing very well, and they were delighted with-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: There are a number of questions. I will take Deputy Bannon's question on the public services card first. I understand the company which does the work is a subsidiary or part of De La Rue. It is based in Bray. I am aware that there are some external inputs into the software systems, but I can get the Deputy more detail. Significantly, it is an Irish operation. It has gone quite well so...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: I am sorry. On the redundancy debt, I heard that slightly peculiar RTE report. We took over the redundancy debt from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation because, although I do not want to continuously harp back to the awful events in 2008 and afterwards, there was a considerable backlog. The Deputy may have known people - I certainly did - who had worked in construction and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: When the Department introduces the return-to-work dividend for families, whereby they will be able to hold onto some of those social welfare payments in respect of children, I hope this will be a significant incentive for people to return to work. The other point pertains to the Department's employment service and if the Deputy has specific examples, I ask him to pass them to the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: I strongly support the recommendations in the Mangan report, which was raised by Deputy O'Dea, Deputy Butler and others. Deputy Butler in particular has on a number of occasions at the committee strongly supported the extension of invalidity and permanent disability benefits to the self-employed. I have seen some organisations representing the self-employed criticising the proposal - Deputy...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: Okay, fine. What other ones am I to do now?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: Does the fraud issue come within this?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: The compliance on anti-fraud strategy that I launched earlier this year is a rolled out programme for 2014 to 2018, and if anybody wants a detailed copy, it is on the website or we can send it. Under the additional measures in the strategy, I want to move to using what has become a very fashionable term - big data. This means using predictive analytical techniques to enhance the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: We make a point through the special investigation units, SIU, of tackling areas like street markets and street traders to check that control savings represent the value of prevented expenditure. We have done a huge number of "feet on the street" campaigns. That involves visiting industrial estates and calling to see that the people on the premises are registered for tax and insurance...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: The official definition in Ireland of long-term unemployment for statistical and other purposes is anyone who has been unemployed for more than one year. For Senator Moloney's benefit, I would point out that in my view, in most modern economies anyone who is unemployed for more than six months falls off a ledge in regard to the willingness by employers to give them serious consideration. In...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: I am prepared to stay, I just had that one query. I understand the clerk will ascertain the position.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: It is going very well, it is very popular.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: On the wage subsidy for people with a disability, in 2014, 1308 people received this to June 2014. In total in 2013, 1100 people received the subsidy and in 2012, 1000 received it. In 2011, 916 received it, and in 2010, 833 people received it. There are now 812 employers, to the end of June, involved in the scheme. The situation is improving but nowhere near the rate of improvement that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: I can stay then.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: I will try to get through it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: I have a slightly complicated answer. We originally had an allocation of 2,000 for this year. As the Deputy will know, we only launched the scheme this time last year and it takes time for any scheme, in terms of word of mouth and spreading the news, to penetrate. It has been so popular that we raised the allocation of 2,000 places for this year to 2,400 earlier in the year. We have now...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: The demand for the scheme is very strong. After the floods in Limerick, young family men in St. Mary's Park asked me if they could go on a scheme. They did so because they wanted to help with the work in Limerick after the disastrous floods last year. In this instance Sinn Féin should wake up and smell the coffee. There is a huge pent up demand for people, particularly former...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Review of Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (17 Sep 2014)

Joan Burton: I am disappointed -----