Results 14,241-14,260 of 27,613 for speaker:Heather Humphreys

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Fuel Prices (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Government is committed to protecting vulnerable households from the impact of energy costs through a combination of supports, energy efficiency awareness initiatives and investment in programmes to improve the energy efficiency of the housing stock. With regard to income supports my Department provides a range of schemes to assist with energy costs. These include - - The Fuel...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Fuel Prices (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: I propose to take Questions Nos. 27, 56 and 79 together. The Fuel Allowance is a payment of €28.00 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €784 each year) from October to April, to 370,000 low income households, at an estimated cost of €300 million in 2021. The purpose of this payment is to assist these households with their energy costs. The allowance represents a...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Deputy will be aware that I will be considering a range of options for Budget 2022 over the coming days, taking account of available resources. A series of evidence-based, targeted measures were introduced in the last two Budgets, to ensure the most vulnerable were protected. Many recipients of Disability Allowance will have benefitted from these measures, which included an increase in...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Public Services Card (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The SAFE-PSC-MyGovID framework is administered by my Department on behalf of the whole public service, and comprises three components: the Standard Authentication Framework Environment (SAFE), the Public Services Card (PSC), and the MyGovID online identity authentication service. I can confirm that a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) report of the SAFE-PSC-MyGovID public service identity management...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: EU Directives (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: My Department is at an advanced stage in its first phase of procuring new employment services. This phase involves the procurement of regional employment services for seven counties in the Midlands and North-West across four lots. Phase two will see the Regional Employment Service model rolled out across the State and my Department will take on board the learnings from the first phase when...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The establishment of an additional Covid-19 discretionary fund to assist households with heating and electricity costs would require approval by Government and consideration from a budgetary and operational perspective. The overall strategy to combat Fuel Poverty / Energy Poverty is under the remit of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications and questions in relation to the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The following table relates to payments broken down by main reason for the Basic Supplementary Welfare Allowance. Figures are based on awardees at the end of year, or on September 26th 2021. Reason End 2018 End 2019 End 2020 Year to Date Daily Expenses Allowance 3,422 4,234 3,595 3,431 ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Pensions Reform (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Programme for Government commits to introducing a pension auto-enrolment system. The objective of this commitment is to address the low proportion of employees in Ireland with supplementary pension cover, which includes both occupational and personal pensions. The rate of supplementary pension coverage in Ireland is around 55% of the working population (CSO, Pension Coverage Survey 2020)...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Support Services (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: My Department is now at an advanced stage in its first phase of procuring new employment services. This phase involves the procurement of regional employment services for seven counties in the Midlands and North-West across four lots. These counties do not have an existing local employment service and represent the first phase of an expansion of similar employment services across. The Phase...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Support Services (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: I propose to take Questions Nos. 35, 54, 64 and 71 together. My Department is now at an advanced stage in its first phase of a two-phase procurement of new employment services. This procurement process follows extensive consultations by my Department with the existing service providers over the last number of years. The new model will extend high quality employment services across the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Support Services (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: My Department is now at an advanced stage in its first phase of procuring new employment services. This phase involves the procurement of regional employment services for seven counties in the Midlands and North-West across four lots. These counties do not have an existing local employment service and represent the first phase of an expansion of similar employment services across the State....

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: In March of last year, under the Health (Preservation and Protection and other Emergency Measures in the Public Interest) Act 2020 and subsequent regulations, the Government provided for entitlement to illness benefit for persons who have been diagnosed with Covid-19 or are a probable source of infection with Covid-19. Expenditure on the enhanced illness benefit was €57 million in...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Arts Policy (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: My Department, as the Public Employment Services (PES), has a key role in the provision of activation measures, including a range of job placement, assistance and employment services, training programmes, employment subsidies and direct employment provision. The main goal of activation measures is to increase the employment opportunities for jobseekers and to improve matching between jobs...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Government acknowledges the important role that family carers play and is fully committed to supporting carers in that role. This commitment is recognised in both the Programme for Government and the National Carers’ Strategy. The main income supports provided by my Department include Carer's Allowance, Carer's Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance, and the Carer's Support Grant....

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Support Services (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: My Department is now at an advanced stage in its first phase of a two-phase procurement of new employment services. This procurement process follows extensive consultations by my Department with the existing service providers over the last number of years. I can assure the Deputy that no new privatisation is being undertaken In relation to employment services. No service previously...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: I propose to take Questions Nos. 42 and 47 together. The school meals programme provides funding towards the provision of food to some 1,506 schools and organisations benefitting 230,000 children. The objective of the programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children who are unable, due to lack of good quality food, to take full advantage of the education provided to them. The...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) was introduced in March 2020 to support employees and the self employed who lost employment due to Covid-19. Expenditure on the scheme is over €8.7 billion. With the gradual lifting of restrictions, the number of customers receiving PUP has dropped significantly by some 80% from 481,000 in February to over 101,400 this week. It is important...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Support Services (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: My Department’s Employer Relations Division (ERD) engages with employers to advise them of the various supports and services provided by my Department to employ jobseekers. This can include providing employers with a bespoke recruitment service to fill job vacancies, where priority is given to job seekers on the live register. They engage with employers daily and can match employer...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Fuel Allowance is a payment of €28.00 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €784 each year) from October to April, to 370,000 low income households, at an estimated cost of €300 million in 2021. The purpose of this payment is to assist these households with their energy costs. The allowance represents a contribution towards the energy costs of a household. It is not...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (7 Oct 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The social protection system includes a variety of social assistance payments with different rules in relation to means testing, reflecting the different contingencies under which payments are made. The means assessment reflects the fact that there is an expectation that people with reasonable amounts of income or capital are in a position to use these resources to support themselves so that...