Results 15,241-15,260 of 20,682 for speaker:Mary Hanafin
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Code: Social Welfare Code (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: I propose to take Questions Nos. 444 and 459 together. Workers are insured under the Social Welfare Acts as either employed or self-employed contributors. All workers, both employed and self-employed, are obliged to pay PRSI contributions as a percentage of their personal reckonable income. The range of benefits and pensions to which different groups of workers may establish entitlement...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The person concerned has made an application for payment of living alone allowance and fuel allowance. To qualify for living alone allowance a person must be living alone, satisfy age criteria and be in receipt of certain social welfare payments from the Department of Social and Family Affairs, of which Disability allowance is one such payment. The person concerned applied for Disability...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Code: Social Welfare Code (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The back to education allowance is a second chance education opportunities scheme designed to encourage and facilitate people on certain social welfare payments to improve their skills and qualifications, thereby enhancing their prospects of returning to the work force. The objective of the scheme is to assist people at risk of becoming dependent on the social welfare system on a long term...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Code: Social Welfare Code (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The free travel scheme permits eligible customers and their spouses/partners to travel for free on most CIE public transport services and the public transport services offered by some ninety private operators in various parts of the country. Free travel is also available on cross border journeys between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. In addition, customers aged 66 years and...
- Written Answers — Departmental Staff: Departmental Staff (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: Civil service posts at the levels of Assistant Secretary and Deputy Secretary are covered by a scheme of performance related awards. Recommendations in relation to awards are made by the Secretary General of each department and the operation of the scheme is overseen by the Committee for Performance Awards. The funding for awards is based on 10% of the payroll for the posts covered by the...
- Written Answers — Decentralisation Programme: Decentralisation Programme (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: Under the Government's current decentralisation programme for the civil and public service, some 1,200 posts comprising the Department's headquarter sections and the Social Welfare Appeals Office are relocating to 6 locations â Sligo, Carrick-on-Shannon, Donegal Town, Buncrana, Carrickmacross and Drogheda. In addition, the Combat Poverty Agency (CPA) and Citizens Information Board (CIB) are...
- Written Answers — Compulsory Purchase Orders: Compulsory Purchase Orders (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: None of the agencies under the aegis of the Department have the power to issue compulsory purchase orders.
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: I propose to take Questions Nos. 451 to 456, inclusive, together. The Department is committed to providing a quality customer service to all its customers. This includes ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are issued as expeditiously as possible having regard to the eligibility conditions which apply. These conditions vary between the two jobseeker...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The deceased person in this case was assessed with an overpayment of â¬9,855.56 in respect of the period 19/02/1999 to 24/10/2002 and had been repaying this amount by way of weekly deductions of â¬12.50 from his pension. At the date of death he had repaid â¬3,312.50 leaving an outstanding balance of â¬6,543.00 In circumstances where a person dies leaving an outstanding overpayment it is...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: Under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is administered on behalf of the Department by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive, an exceptional needs payment (ENP) may be made to help meet an essential, once-off cost which the applicant is unable to meet out of his/her own resources. There is no automatic entitlement to this payment. Each application is...
- Written Answers — Family Support Services: Family Support Services (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: Training for carers is an important issue both in terms of training to assist with the provision of care and training to assist carers to return to employment when their caring has ceased. This issue is being examined in the context of the development of the National Carers Strategy.
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The person concerned does not satisfy the statutory qualifying contributions conditions for receipt of Illness Benefit or Jobseeker's Benefit. He made an application for Jobseeker's Allowance on 21st April 2008. His application was refused by a Deciding Officer on the grounds that he does not hold a valid work permit and therefore, is not available for full-time employment. I am advised by...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which includes mortgage interest supplement, is administered on behalf of the Department by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive. A mortgage interest supplement provides short-term income support to eligible people who are unable to meet their mortgage interest repayments in respect of a house which is their sole place of...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Appeals: Social Welfare Appeals (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The Social Welfare Appeals Office operates independently of the Department in determining appeals on social welfare entitlements. Of the 13,845 appeals finalised by that Office in 2007, 6,531 (or 47.1%) had a favourable outcome. The corresponding statistics for 2008 to the end of August were 9,830 appeals finalised of which 4,695 (or 47.7%) had a favourable outcome. Decisions on statutory...
- Written Answers — Data Protection: Data Protection (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The Department has a comprehensive written Portable Computing Device Security Policy, which is published on its in-house intranet site. Staff are advised, inter alia, that sensitive Department data should not be stored on portable computing devices or portable storage media. However, in the event that there is no alternative to local storage, all sensitive Department data stored on portable...
- Written Answers — Data Protection: Data Protection (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The following data devices, owned by the Department, were reported stolen or lost to date in 2008 â Two Laptops â (1 house break-in, 1 office break-in); Two Desktops â Buncrana SWLO. None of these devices have been recovered. As all client data is held on central databases, no client data is held on the stolen computer desktops. Laptops can be used to access centrally stored client...
- Written Answers — Social Insurance: Social Insurance (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The Social Insurance Fund derives its income mainly from pay-related social insurance contributions from employers, employees and self employed workers. It provides insured contributors with both long-term pension benefits and short-term benefits such as unemployment and disability payments. The fund comprises a current account which is managed and controlled by the Minister for Social and...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance (BSCFA) Scheme is administered on behalf of the Department by the community welfare division (CWS) of the Health Service Executive (HSE). Applications for the allowance may be made between the beginning of June and the end of September each year. The Southern area of the HSE has advised that an application for BSCFA has recently been...
- Written Answers — Data Protection: Data Protection (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The laptop belonging to the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) was reported missing in April 2007. On 1st of August, 2008 some 16 months after the laptop went missing, the Office of the C&AG informed the Department that the missing laptop contained a number of files used in connection with the audit of the Social Insurance Fund for 2004 and 2005. These files contained some...
- Written Answers — Departmental Staff: Departmental Staff (30 Sep 2008)
Mary Hanafin: The Department's Management Services Unit has responsibility for carrying out staffing assessments for all the business areas in the Department including Local Offices. The Administrative Productivity Training (APT) method of work measurement is used to identify, measure and quantify workloads and determine staffing requirements for all clerical/administrative work. Based on the measurement,...