Results 6,121-6,140 of 12,033 for speaker:Regina Doherty

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Carer's Benefit Applications (8 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: Carer's benefit (CARB) is a payment made to insured people who leave the workforce to care for a person(s) in need of full-time care and attention. I confirm that my department received an application for CARB from the person concerned on the 3 September 2018.  The application is currently being processed and once completed, the person concerned will be notified directly of the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Jobseeker's Allowance (8 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: The jobseeker’s allowance scheme provides income support for people who have lost work and are unable to find alternative full-time employment.  The 2018 Estimates for my Department provide for expenditure this year on the jobseeker’s schemes of €2.17 billion.     The qualifying conditions for receipt of jobseeker’s allowance require a...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits Eligibility (8 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: Partial Capacity Benefit (PCB) is a social welfare scheme which allows a person to return to work or self-employment (if they have reduced capacity to work) and continue to receive a payment from the Department. PCB does not currently have the flexibility to uplift payments in a week where little or no work has been available to the customer. However, the scheme is entirely voluntary and a...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Data (8 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: The accreditation of educational standards is not a matter for my Department.  According to the Department of Education and Skills there are no  “nationally accredited internships”.  Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) validates Further Education and Higher Education programmes in the public and private sectors, some of which have been validated...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Illness Benefit Costs (8 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: The Department would like to be clear that, as before, patients do not need to pay a fee to receive claim forms or medical certificates (IB1 and MED1 forms) from their GP, as the Department pays the doctor an agreed fee to provide them.  Should any person seeking to make a claim for Illness Benefit or another scheme experience a difficulty in getting a claim form or a...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Household Benefits Scheme (8 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: The free television licence forms part of the household benefits package, together with the electricity or gas allowance.  The package is generally available to people living in the State, aged 66 years or over, who are in receipt of a social welfare type payment and who are living alone or only with an excepted person.  There is of course a universal entitlement to the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (8 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: On 23 January last, the Government agreed to allow pensioners, born on or after the 1st September 1946, affected by the 2012 changes in rate bands, to have their state pension (contributory) entitlement calculated under an interim “Total Contributions Approach” (TCA).  The changes also provide for up to 20 years of home caring periods...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Working Family Payment Eligibility (8 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: Working Family Payment (WFP) is a weekly tax free payment which provides additional income support to employees, with children, on low earnings. The applicant,  in order to qualify for working family payment,  must be engaged in full-time remunerative employment as an employee for no less than 38 hours in a fortnight. An application to renew the Working...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Jobseeker's Allowance (8 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: The person concerned was notified by my Department on the 15th of August 2018 that they had a debt of €198.00.  The correspondence stipulated to the person concerned that this debt would be recovered by a reduction in their weekly payment of 15% of his personal rate and that the deductions would begin 3 weeks from the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Jobseeker's Allowance (8 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: The person concerned was last paid a weekly Jobseeker's Allowance on 13thDecember 2016 and last paid a weekly Supplementary Welfare Allowance on 6th September 2017. She has appealed the decisions to disallow both payments and the appeal process is currently underway. In the meantime, she has received a number of Exceptional Needs Payments, including on four occasions during October 2018....

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Illness Benefit Payments (13 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: I propose to take Questions Nos. 70, 71 and 74 together. My Department has experienced significant difficulties in processing illness benefit payments in recent times which, regrettably, have impacted on people in a manner that has correctly been described as unacceptable. This is a matter of great concern to me and my Department. I am extremely disappointed and embarrassed by our failure...

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Illness Benefit Payments (13 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: I thank the Deputies. I am not standing here in front of anybody trying to justify any of the actions that happened over recent months. I have said on a number of occasions that this is particularly difficult to accept because an exemplary level of service is offered by people in the Department 99.9% of the time. That is why this debacle is so difficult to try to explain. I assure Deputy...

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Illness Benefit Payments (13 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: I understood the terms of reference for the independent review were given to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection. If they were not I will get them for Deputy Brady. There is no problem about sharing them. I am not doing the review to keep it a secret. We can all go back to the committee so that we can all learn effectively together. The most...

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Illness Benefit Payments (13 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: There is nothing wrong with the new medical certificates.

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Illness Benefit Payments (13 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: The doctors who use the new medical certificates were among the 80% who were not affected. In effect, had the system gone the way it was supposed to go it would have worked but it gave rise to other anomalies that we did not recognise because of the changes we had to make in the response to people using the old medical systems. That is our fault, nobody else’s fault. The...

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Social Welfare Benefits (13 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: As the Deputy is aware from previous questions on this matter, the Department is working on a review of the maintenance and liable relative procedures, insofar as they relate to the payment schemes operated by my Department. From a broader perspective, the wider issues relating to maintenance, including the establishment of a child maintenance service to assist lone parents, are a matter for...

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Social Welfare Benefits (13 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: I kind of tend to agree with the Deputy but I am not sure whether we should expand or do away with it. I am not sure it is our job in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to chase errant parents. It is definitely somebody's job but I am totally against penalising women, as they are in the main, for not chasing the errant partner to look after their children. I have...

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Social Welfare Benefits (13 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: We do not.

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Social Welfare Benefits (13 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: Whether we expand or downgrade our liable relatives division has no impact on a parent's poverty whatsoever because the payment issued to the parent is done on the basis of that parent's circumstances. If they get maintenance there is a very generous maintenance disregard. If they do not get maintenance it is not included in our assessment. They do not get it and we compensate for the fact...

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: JobPath Data (13 Nov 2018)

Regina Doherty: JobPath is one of our more successful activation services. It supports the long-term unemployed in securing and sustaining full-time paid employment. Jobseekers are referred to the service by means of a selection process. A person who has previously completed a year with JobPath is referred back to an Intreo case officer. This is in-house, so to speak. If after six months, he or she...