Results 3,881-3,900 of 12,033 for speaker:Regina Doherty

Other Questions: Public Services Card Authentication (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: Nobody has been refused a payment for failure to produce a PSC. There is no legal basis for the card. People are asked to come in to identify themselves under the SAFE 2 authentication process to a standard that is acceptable to the Minister under the law. In the case to which the Deputy referred, the client had not gone through the SAFE process; it had nothing do with the PSC. The...

Other Questions: Public Services Card Authentication (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: It is not me personally.

Other Questions: Public Services Card Authentication (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: On the basis that we spend billions of euros of taxpayers' money, the Minister and Government decided in 2005 that we needed to have a process to ensure the money went to the people entitled to it. That SAFE 2 process was ratified in 2005 by the then Government and became law in 2011. I hate talking about particular people but the person the Deputy refers to was not refused and their...

Other Questions: Public Services Card Authentication (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: The only way we can do that is to make sure people are who they say they are.

Other Questions: Public Services Card Authentication (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: The passport was probably produced under SAFE 1, which was a different level of identity authentication. We have moved to SAFE 2 and a product given under SAFE 1 is not suitable for something that is required to produce an identity reassurance under SAFE 2. I did not make the law. It just is the law and it makes perfect sense given the number of people we have uncovered who are using...

Other Questions: Public Services Card Authentication (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: We need to make sure taxpayers' money is going to the people who are entitled to get it.

Other Questions: Fuel Allowance Payments (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: The fuel allowance is a targeted payment of €22.50 per week, paid for the duration of the fuel season from October to April, and over 338,000 low income households benefit from this allowance, at an estimated cost of €227 million in 2018. The purpose of this payment is to assist these households with their energy costs, not to pay their full energy costs. One allowance is paid...

Other Questions: Fuel Allowance Payments (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: The Deputy is almost asking me what I will have for my dinner next Tuesday and I do not know what I will have for my dinner tonight. I cannot tell him what will happen in the context of budget conversations because they have not started. I know he is as keen as I am to get this sorted and have a substantial effect on the households he is talking about, but he also knows I want to do that...

Other Questions: Fuel Allowance Payments (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: At the risk of repeating myself, I must reiterate that it is an allowance and that it is not supposed to pay for people's entire energy costs. I do not want to be smart but I am only working on the project at the moment. When I am finished working on it and examining the effects of fuel poverty on certain families in Ireland, I will then be better armed to know how I can alleviate that. I...

Other Questions: Public Services Card (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: It is not mandatory or compulsory for anybody in the State to have a public services card. It is not mandatory or compulsory for one person to have a card. It has, however, always been necessary for people using high-value or personalised public services, which are now considered to be online public services, to be able to prove their identity. In order to ensure that services are...

Other Questions: Public Services Card (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: I have a habit of making things more confusing than they were in the first place, so I apologise. There is no requirement to have a public services card. It is only a by-product and people are only given cards to prove that they have undergone the SAFE 2 process and passed. If a person does not want a card, nobody will make that him or her get it. Nobody can ever ask him or her for the...

Other Questions: Public Services Card Data (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: The public services card is simply the token that proves that a person, Joan Collins for example, has completed the SAFE 2 level process and that she is Joan Colllins. The card is only a by-product or a token of having gone through that standard. There are 50 public bodies - or their agents - detailed and listed in the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, as amended, that can ask a person...

Other Questions: Public Services Card Data (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: It is a requirement.

Other Questions: Public Services Card Data (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: I have defended the PSC, I have said that it is not an identity card and I have listed all the reasons as to why it is not, including that nobody can ask a person for it. One can never be walking down the road and be stopped by someone demanding that one show one's PSC. Nobody has the authority to ask a person for their PSC. The only thing that bodies have the authority to do is to allow...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Visual Artist's Workspace Scheme (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: Periods of unemployment can be a typical feature of their professions for writers and artists. They can go through fallow periods while, for example, they are building up their work and trying to establish themselves. A pilot initiative targeted at self-employed visual artists and writers was launched in June 2017. These professions can qualify for a jobseeker’s payment when they are...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Rights (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: I propose to take Questions Nos. 42, 53 and 57 together. Bogus self-employment arises where an employer wrongly treats a worker as an independent contractor in order to avoid tax and social insurance contributions. There are robust arrangements in place for dealing with complaints of bogus self-employment. Social welfare inspectors inspect a wide range of businesses, as part of their...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Insurance Payments (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: The people referred to by the Deputy were public servants who were employed in a permanent and pensionable capacity and who were determined to be paying the wrong class of PRSI. In the first case, the person concerned was made permanent and formally admitted to the superannuation scheme by her employer on 1 September 2006. In 2013, following a request by the employer for an insurability...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Economic and Social Research Institute (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: The research report referred to is “Poverty Dynamics of Social Risk Groups in the EU” produced by the ESRI, funded by my Department and published last month. It analysed the significance of different systems of welfare regimes and their effectiveness in protecting vulnerable groups in eleven EU countries, including Ireland, over a 10 year period. That ten year period was from...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: JobsPlus Scheme (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: The JobsPlus scheme, since its introduction in 2013, has provided a direct monthly financial incentive to employers who recruit employees who are long term on the live register and those transitioning into employment. My Department pays the incentive to employers monthly in arrears over a two-year period. It provides employers with two levels of payment, €7,500 and €10,000,...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments Waiting Times (20 Feb 2018)

Regina Doherty: I can assure the Deputy that prompt processing of claims is a priority for me. Scheme areas are monitored and reviewed to ensure customers are responded to and claims are processed as expeditiously as possible. As part of its programme of service delivery modernisation, a range of initiatives aimed at streamlining the processing of claims, supported by modern technology, have been...