Results 10,621-10,640 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Fortunately, we were able to return. Working abroad can be a good and valuable experience. Many people who have developed businesses and entrepreneurship have gained experience from living abroad. While savings will be made if young people who were in receipt of social welfare benefits emigrate, it also means we are losing people who believe the country's outlook is not as positive as it...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: It is critical that people's homes should be insulated in order that the amount of fuel they are obliged to use will be reduced to a dramatic extent.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Other countries have had great success in doing what I am advocating. Programmes to insulate people's homes provide high levels of employment, particularly for those who have experience in construction. A programme of this nature would provide an ideal way to get people who have lost their jobs in the construction sector back to work. That is why I commend the proposals of the Minister for...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: The purpose of section 8 is to clarify the position arising from the enactment of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010. One of the measures included in the Bill, which we have not debated extensively because everybody strongly agrees with it, is the introduction of parallel entitlements and changes in the social welfare system for those who enter a...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Yes. The difficulty was created by the Deputy's own party in government. When the then Minister, the late Brian Lenihan, announced that we would move to a universal social charge that implied that it would be within the structure of being similar to a universal social contribution. In the event, when the then Minister for Finance introduced his legislation it was a universal social charge...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: As I understand it the Minister presented a memorandum to the former Government. I understand the outcome of that was that there were to be discussions between him and the then Minister for Finance but in the event nothing got changed or amended. I am introducing this amendment today in regard to family income supplement to ensure that in the case of low paid families in work in particular...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: The point I was making is that it is the construction of the universal social charge by Fianna Fáil and the Green Party in Government that is the crux of the problem. The universal social charge is defined in the legislation as a tax. It is not a contribution even though, understandably, when the former Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan, first mentioned it in December 2009 in...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: The next budget is primarily a matter for the Minister for Finance, and I will draw his attention to what the Deputy has said. Providing for the FIS arrangement in respect of the universal social charge is as far as I can go within the parameters of this Bill.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: I thank Deputies who raised the FLAC submission and would like to give them some background in regard to this. Section 241(1A) and (1B) of the Social Welfare Act, as inserted by section 9 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2009, provided that new claimants of all social welfare payments could be required to provide a range of information for profiling and activation purposes. If one...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: It is all the new claimants.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Yes. The forms have been redesigned with the assistance of the ESRI. The pilot project is to ensure, first, the collection of information that is relevant to the purpose of this, which is to help people with education, training, work experience and so forth. The forms have been redesigned and the information is computerised. When we have the full outcome of the pilot project we expect to...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: I will respond to Deputy Joan Collins's points first. The person who applies for and accepts an internship will get an internship for a six-month or nine-month period. While on the internship, the person will retain existing entitlements to jobseeker's payments. My Department will pay an additional €50 per week for the duration of the internship. The issue of three days does not apply...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: The short answer is that Tús was specifically designed by my predecessor, Deputy Ó Cuív, as an expansion of the rural social scheme, which is popular in parts of the west.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: The rural social scheme was confined to specifically rural-----

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: I apologise. I thought the Acting Chairman called me.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: That is a maximum figure.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Did he not do well?

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: To reassure Deputies, the host organisation which identifies a potential internship opportunity must nominate a suitable mentor from within the organisation, such as the HR department, if a company is of large enough to have one, to oversee the process. Companies must apply to the national employment and entitlements service to have the internship recognised. They will have to make an...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Community welfare officers will be transferring from the HSE to the Department of Social Protection, and those arrangements should be completed, as the Deputy mentioned, by the end of September. The position of community welfare officer will still exist even though, because people will have payments processed in their local offices, the need for supplementary payments should decrease over...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: There is an amendment elsewhere in the Bill on that point. I will obtain a reference to the exact section for the Deputy.