Results 11,921-11,940 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Social Insurance (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: I am very aware of the very difficult financial position of some self-employed people. However, there must be a balance between contributions made and benefits received. Self-employed persons are liable for PRSI at the class S rate of 4%, which entitles them to access long-term benefits such as State contributory pension and widow's, widower's or surviving civil partner's contributory...

Social Insurance (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: The Deputy's proposal that self-employed people be allowed to make full contributions at class A level is worth examining. The advisory group on social welfare and taxation, which is currently examining the issue of family supports and child payments in the social welfare system, will next consider the issue of social welfare for the self-employed. We are all aware that during the boom, the...

Social Insurance (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: If we want to build a modern welfare state for the 21st century, there are things we must take into account. People who are leaving school today or leaving college this year or next year will spend some of their time as employees and some of their time as contractors or self-employed. In some cases they will set up companies and become directors. Our welfare system needs to make provision...

Rent Allowance (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: Rent supplement expenditure increased from €369 million in 2005 to €516 million in 2010. The number of people claiming the allowance increased from almost 60,200 in 2005 to 95,700 as at October 2011, that is, by nearly 60%. There are no plans to expand the scheme by relaxing the eligibility rules, thereby increasing the number of people in receipt of rent supplement. The main strategic...

Rent Allowance (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: My colleague Deputy Penrose, the Minister of State with responsibility for housing, has continual contact with NAMA with a view to obtaining this social dividend for citizens and taxpayers, who are paying the cost of NAMA, through the use of properties in the NAMA portfolio which may be suitable for housing. The Minister of State has been active in pursuing this. One of the reasons the...

Rent Allowance (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: Another priority in terms of saving money is for the Department to secure better deals from landlords in regard to rents. That is best handled by the local authorities, which is why I am anxious to see the rent supplement scheme transferred to them. Community welfare officers, who are experts in this area, joined my Department's staff on 1 October. There is a committee of officials and...

Social Welfare Benefits (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: I am very conscious of the needs of people on social welfare and fully understand that a wide range of groups depend on the welfare budget for vital support. In the context of a very tough budgetary environment, I will do my utmost to protect the most vulnerable people in Irish society, including retired and older people in receipt of social welfare pensions and the free travel scheme. My...

Social Welfare Benefits (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: The most effective means of ensuring people's homes are adequately heated is to install adequate insulation. The Deputy will be aware that older people tend to live in older houses which may be poorly insulated. It is important that we seek to have an active programme for insulating houses. In the case of local authority houses built in the 1970s, for example, the insulation standards are...

Social Welfare Benefits (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: The Deputy might send me a note with the details of the company's proposal. A great deal of work is ongoing in terms of insulation initiatives, many of which are carried out under community programmes in different areas throughout the State and have been very successful. There is a challenge in that in the case of council houses built in the 1970s, for instance, some long-standing tenants...

Social Welfare Benefits (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: I propose to take Questions Nos. 6, 12 and 27 together. My Department will spend over €530 million in 2011 on the fuel scheme and the telephone, gas and electricity elements of the household benefits package which will benefit some 390,000 people on household benefits and 375,000 on the fuel allowance. In 2005 there were 325,000 people on household benefits and 265,000 on the fuel...

Social Welfare Benefits (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: I thank the Deputy for his support on this because the Department is a major purchaser of fuel in the sense of paying for people's fuel, electricity and gas bills but we do not get discounts. The view was taken quite a long time ago by the Competition Authority that the Department did not have status in regard to negotiation. We are currently negotiating it. However, it may be necessary to...

Social Welfare Benefits (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: The Deputy would be aware that in addition to the household benefits package and the fuel allowance, we have 1,000 community welfare officers employed whose job is to assist people who may have exceptional needs in regard to fuel payments. We employ 1,000 people to do that at very significant cost to the taxpayer and it surprises me that the Deputy would not acknowledge the work the...

Social Welfare Benefits (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: I very much share the Deputy's sentiments. I was in a particular difficulty in that a number of measures or savings in 2011 and future years were specified as part of budget 2011 but were not announced by the then Fianna Fáil Government at the time. They were specified and laid down when I came into office. They included a saving of €30 million in the energy and telephone elements of...

Social Welfare Benefits (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: On the energy side, the negotiations with the ESB are continuing. There were difficulties with the Competition Authority for a number of years. The core of the difficulty is that the Department is not recognised as a bulk purchaser. The contract for fuel supplies is deemed to be between the individual social welfare client, the pensioner or whoever, and the energy company. If a view is...

Social Welfare Benefits (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: It is the most important thing that we should do but it will take time.

Departmental Expenditure (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: Sustainable public finances are a pre-requisite for maintaining an adequate system of social protection as well as achieving future economic stability and growth. For these reasons, the State must pursue a determined deficit reduction strategy. Accordingly, there will be an on-going requirement to curtail expenditure in my Department and in all other Departments, in 2012 and in later years....

Departmental Expenditure (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: The most effective way of reducing the cost of social welfare expenditure is to get people back to work. The difficulty that the budget labours under is that when the then Government made the forecasts this time last year and signed off on the Memorandum of Understanding, it estimated a higher growth rate but more importantly from the point of view of the Department, that only 405000 people...

Departmental Expenditure (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: In the regard to the memorandum of understanding and the deal with the troika we have to balance two concerns. We have been doing well. We were told renegotiation of the interest rate was impossible by Fianna Fáil when it was in government. I predicted it could be done and it has been done. We now need to negotiate the structure of the promissory note to Anglo Irish Bank which totals...

Departmental Expenditure (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: I gave my view earlier. Rent supplement should be transferred to local authorities. It was meant as a temporary housing support for people in rented accommodation who lost their jobs. It has become a permanent feature of the system, encompassing 95,000 people and costing approximately €500 million this year. The other major problem with rent supplement is that it can constitute a severe...

Back to Education Allowance (13 Oct 2011)

Joan Burton: The back to education allowance, BTEA, scheme is a second chance education opportunities scheme designed to remove the barriers to participation in second and third level education by enabling eligible people on certain social welfare payments to continue to receive a payment while pursuing an approved full-time education course that leads to a higher qualification than that already held. The...