Results 17,421-17,440 of 20,682 for speaker:Mary Hanafin

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: Clearly, the Department will examine staffing in local offices that are experiencing problems. I must be fair to offices throughout the country. The Deputy asked about offices with the longest processing times. The Secretary General has also been examining management issues and so forth because these must be considered from an operations perspective, with a view to ensuring people are...

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: Suffice to say, the agreement with the branch officers goes back to April 2008, but agreement has not been reached with the CPSU on the issue because it says it is outsourcing.

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: Deputy Crawford raised that issue with me and I am aware there are some issues with regard to the capital valuation being placed on properties. There have been significant changes and improvements throughout the country with regard to benefits for the self-employed. It has not been brought to my attention that there is significant difficulty in any individual office, but if there are,...

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: I wanted to mention the value of the central units in making decisions. When, for example, the SR Technics redundancies came on stream, all of those, instead of going to local offices, went to the Finglas central unit and the decisions were made there. The same happened in the case of Dell and the applications from there went immediately to Sligo. These central offices were able to deal...

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: No, I gave a separate example.

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: We recently streamlined procedures for people moving to jobseeker's allowance from jobseeker's benefit. We have also made an improvement in the IT system, which will generate automatic letters to people before they come to the end of jobseeker's benefit so that assessments can be done. We have also streamlined a process for people who have had a claim in the previous two years, so that if...

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: That is what I understand, because it is outsourcing from the local office to the branch office. The second issue on which it has not been possible to make progress was the project that allowed decisions on jobseeker's benefit to be made on the day. That had to be stopped and there has been no progress on it. Lest the Deputy is confused about what I said, what has progressed is that the...

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: Two issues have not progressed and one initiative started and stopped but has now progressed very successfully in 16 different offices. That is the appointment system and it has the full co-operation of the staff. Staff in our offices throughout the country are genuinely working flat out. This can be seen in their productivity. Some 200,000 claims cleared in one month is extraordinary...

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: What has happened is that claims will be processed more smoothly, given the person made a claim in the previous two weeks. That issue has been streamlined. I think what the Deputy is saying is that although the money comes from two different Departments, it all comes from the Exchequer and that these people should not have to make repeated claims. That has not been changed. However, we...

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: Expenditure on rent and mortgage payments has increased significantly in recent years and there are currently over 88,000 recipients of rent supplement and 12,900 recipients of mortgage interest supplement. Increased expenditure on these payments is driven not only by rises in the live register but also by an increase in recipients on other schemes such as one-parent family payment and...

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: There is very close co-operation between my Department and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The Deputy is correct. It is very frustrating to see houses boarded up when people are in need of housing and are in rented accommodation. We are working closely with the Department to ensure more people are transferred onto the RAS scheme. In the last few years,...

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: It is important that there should be a waiting time for people who are in rented accommodation before they get what is a priority scheme, that is, RAS.

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: There are people on housing waiting lists, as the Deputy knows far better than I do, who are in overcrowded accommodation at home but are not in rented accommodation and need to take their place in receiving social housing and the type of housing available for them.

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: A waiting time is important.

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: It is important because I believe it is. The changes in the supplementary budget are also important, such as the provision that people should have been in rented accommodation for six months or have a full assessment, rather than setting up new households with a view to getting rent supplement.

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: It makes total sense because these are important controls. Deputy Durkan asked about the amount spent. There are currently 88,000 people on rent supplement and 12,720 on mortgage interest supplement. Deputy Enright mentioned repossessions. She is correct regarding the repossession orders, but in some cases they are waiting for a lean on the home or building. I hope the protocol will...

Social Welfare Benefits. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: -----will guide our future thinking on the issue.

Flood Relief. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: I thank the Deputy for giving me an opportunity to come to the House to discuss the severe flooding which occurred in the Gweedore Gaeltacht area in County Donegal on 23 June 2009. It is ironic that this flooding took place at a time when most of the rest of the country was basking in sunshine. The Donegal fire service has described the weather as freakish. My colleague, Deputy Martin...

Mental Health Services. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: I thank Deputy Neville for raising this important matter, to which I will reply on behalf of my colleagues, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney, and the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy John Moloney. The report made for very difficult reading, highlighting significant deficiencies in the mental health services in Clonmel. The Minister of...

Special Educational Needs. (25 Jun 2009)

Mary Hanafin: I thank Deputy Deenihan for raising this matter and apologise on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, who could not be present. I am pleased to have been given the opportunity by the Deputy to clarify the position with regard to the matter raised by him. The Department of Education and Science funds post-school provision for young adults,...