Results 1,741-1,760 of 4,893 for speaker:Séamus Brennan
- Written Answers — Adult Education: Adult Education (22 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: My Department administers a range of back to education programmes, under the umbrella of its employment support services, to encourage and facilitate single parents and others to return to work through the acquisition and improvement of skills and academic qualifications which will enable them to compete more successfully for employment. Programmes range from basic literacy courses through to...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (22 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The person concerned has not been awarded the household benefits package because a member of the household is receiving unemployment assistance and is therefore not considered an excepted person for the purpose of the scheme. One of the conditions of the household benefits package for people under 70 years is that the applicant must be residing alone or with excepted people. Excepted people...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (22 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The one-parent family payment was introduced in 1997 to provide income support to those parents with insufficient means who are parenting alone as a result of being widowed, or following separation or divorce, or being unmarried. Poverty rates tend to be higher among larger families and one-parent families, due mainly to the direct costs of rearing children, including child care costs, and...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (22 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The Health Service Executive, which administers the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance scheme on my behalf, has advised that it has no record of an application from the family concerned.
- Written Answers — Decentralisation Programme: Decentralisation Programme (22 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: Under the decentralisation programme announced by the Government in 2003, the Combat Poverty Agency is designated to relocate to Monaghan town. At this time there is no indicative date for the move. The Combat Poverty Agency has submitted an implementation plan to the decentralisation group and is currently in the process of updating that plan. There are a total of 39 applicants on the...
- Written Answers — Hospital Staff: Hospital Staff (22 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: My Department arranges sessions at various centres around the country to assess or review the medical condition of people who are claiming a payment from my Department in respect of illness. These sessions are conducted by the Department's medical assessors and a nurse attendant is always present during the examinations. With the exception of a small number of nurse attendants, the majority...
- Written Answers — Social Insurance: Social Insurance (23 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The employee PRSI ceiling is reviewed annually in accordance with the legislative stipulations of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 1993. The legislation requires the Minister to take into account any changes in the average earnings of workers in the transportable good industries as recorded by the Central Statistics Office. The 2006 Abridged Estimates assumes an increase in the employee...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (23 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The household benefits package, which comprises the electricity-gas allowance, telephone allowance and television licence schemes, is generally available to people living permanently in the State, aged 66 years or over, who are in receipt of a social welfare type payment or who satisfy a means test. The package is also available to carers in receipt of a carer's allowance and to people with...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (23 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The aim of the national fuel scheme is to assist householders that are in receipt of long-term social welfare or Health Service Executive payments towards their additional heating needs during the winter season. As a long-standing policy within the scheme, fuel allowances are not payable in cases where a person has access to their own fuel supply, or is benefiting from a subsidised heating...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (23 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: Under social welfare legislation a person who is in receipt of a widow's or widower's contributory pension may qualify for half rate unemployment benefit or half rate disability benefit subject to satisfying the normal conditions for entitlement to payment. To be entitled to payment of unemployment benefit a person must be unemployed, be under 66 years of age, be capable of and available for...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (23 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: For unemployment assistance purposes, the assessment of means for non-householders resident in the parental home has always taken into account the yearly value of any benefit and privilege enjoyed by him or her by virtue of residing with a parent or step-parent. In practice, this is taken to mean the value of free board and lodging to a claimant and such value is ascribed having regard to the...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (23 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The maximum qualified adult dependant increase is payable where the adult dependant's gross weekly earnings do not exceed â¬88.88. Regulations provide for the tapered, or gradual, withdrawal of the qualified adult allowance for claimants of most welfare payments where the person's spouse-partner is earning over â¬88.88 and finally withdrawn at earnings of â¬220 per week. Since the...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (23 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: Under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is administered on my behalf by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive, a weekly or monthly rent or mortgage interest supplement is available to assist eligible people who are unable to meet their immediate accommodation needs through their own resources. The scheme is subject to statutory means test rules...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (23 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: I propose to take Questions Nos. 160 to 162, inclusive, and 164 together. The 2006 Abridged Estimates, as normal, made no provision for changes in eligibility, entitlements or rates of payment for any of the schemes administered by my Department. Improvements across the range of social welfare schemes are being considered at present in the context of the forthcoming budget.
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (23 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: Fuel allowances are paid for 29 weeks from the end of September to mid-April each year. Some 274,000 customers â 151,000 with basic fuel allowance and 123,000 with smokeless fuel supplement â benefit under the scheme at a cost of â¬85.4 million in 2005. Under the scheme, a fuel allowance of â¬9 per week is paid to eligible households during this 29-week winter heating period. An...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (23 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The person concerned applied for carer's allowance in respect of two carees on 4 October 2005. The principal conditions for receipt of the allowance are that full-time care and attention is required and being provided and that the means test that applies is satisfied. Additionally, the requirement to be habitually resident in Ireland was introduced as a qualifying condition for certain social...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (24 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which includes rent supplement, is administered my behalf by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive. My Department has no function with regard to decisions on individual claims. To be eligible for rent supplement, applicants must have a housing need that they are unable to meet either from their own resources or through...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (24 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The diet supplement scheme is administered on my behalf by the community welfare division of the Health Service Executive, and neither I nor my Department has any function in relation to individual claim decisions. The Dublin-mid-Leinster area of the executive has advised that, following a review of his entitlements, it determined that the person concerned was entitled to a reduced rate of...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (24 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: I propose to take Questions Nos. 147 and 148 together. Entitlement to adoptive benefit is contingent in the first instance on entitlement to adoptive leave. The right to adoptive leave is established under the adoptive leave legislation, which is the responsibility of my colleague the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. That legislation requires that the adopting parent's employer...
- Written Answers — Departmental Funding: Departmental Funding (24 Nov 2005)
Séamus Brennan: The main source of funding available from my Department to groups providing counselling comes through the scheme of grants to voluntary organisations providing marriage, child and bereavement counselling, administered by the Family Support Agency. Funding for 2005 under the scheme amounted to some â¬8.4 million and over 500 groups throughout the country received financial support under this...