Results 18,061-18,080 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: I will return to some of the issues raised last week as well. With regard to the issues relating to applications for demand-led schemes such as illness and disability benefit and invalidity pension, we do not appreciate in this country that 300,000 people and their families are on these three schemes, which comprises 16% of the working age population. It is a high figure.
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: On illness and disability benefits and invalidity pension. A total of 300,000 people are on one form of illness support payment or other and they may have dependants and children. That equates to 16% of adults of working age. That is a very high figure. Countries that we recognise as having good social welfare systems and that have reformed social welfare, such as Denmark, Holland and the...
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: During the years of the Celtic tiger it rose from 200,000 to 300,000. We could all work out different elements of the explanation and, when people talk about reform, it is a significant number. Senator van Turnhout referred to children. The worst poverty outcome for children is to be in jobless households. The most important thing for a child to be successful, in terms of being financially...
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: The Senator mentioned that to me and it merits consideration. Sometimes the objectives in the budget are like the loaves and fishes, where I try to do all these good things, and I am grateful for people's support, on a limited budget. There was a question about caps on social welfare payments. In the context of the structure of the Irish system, that would be difficult. At the moment there...
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: It is the way the systems are arranged. There could be a series of payments from different sources. An inspector can review particular cases and he would collate the information but the information is not there automatically.
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: I am not in favour of some of the changes being made in Britain; some of them are extremely difficult. I prefer to encourage and provide people with the supports and capacity to re-engage in work and education. We do not have the technical resources to do it anyway. If we suspect someone of fraud, and members of the public telephone us all the time when they feel something is wrong about...
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: I thank the Senator. I will be happy to come back and talk about pensions. I commissioned a study on pensions to see if we would work out what the charges were and I will be happy to talk to the Senator and hear her proposals.
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: I will find out about that and come back to the Senator.
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: I will return to some of the issues raised last week as well. With regard to the issues relating to applications for demand-led schemes such as illness and disability benefit and invalidity pension, we do not appreciate in this country that 300,000 people and their families are on these three schemes, which comprises 16% of the working age population. It is a high figure.
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: On illness and disability benefits and invalidity pension. A total of 300,000 people are on one form of illness support payment or other and they may have dependants and children. That equates to 16% of adults of working age. That is a very high figure. Countries that we recognise as having good social welfare systems and that have reformed social welfare, such as Denmark, Holland and the...
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: During the years of the Celtic tiger it rose from 200,000 to 300,000. We could all work out different elements of the explanation and, when people talk about reform, it is a significant number. Senator van Turnhout referred to children. The worst poverty outcome for children is to be in jobless households. The most important thing for a child to be successful, in terms of being financially...
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: The Senator mentioned that to me and it merits consideration. Sometimes the objectives in the budget are like the loaves and fishes, where I try to do all these good things, and I am grateful for people's support, on a limited budget. There was a question about caps on social welfare payments. In the context of the structure of the Irish system, that would be difficult. At the moment there...
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: It is the way the systems are arranged. There could be a series of payments from different sources. An inspector can review particular cases and he would collate the information but the information is not there automatically.
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: I am not in favour of some of the changes being made in Britain; some of them are extremely difficult. I prefer to encourage and provide people with the supports and capacity to re-engage in work and education. We do not have the technical resources to do it anyway. If we suspect someone of fraud, and members of the public telephone us all the time when they feel something is wrong about...
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: I thank the Senator. I will be happy to come back and talk about pensions. I commissioned a study on pensions to see if we would work out what the charges were and I will be happy to talk to the Senator and hear her proposals.
- Seanad: Social Protection: Statements (Resumed) (24 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: I will find out about that and come back to the Senator.
- Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Carer's Allowance Applications (25 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: I acknowledge that the time taken to process carer’s allowance claims at present is not satisfactory but I am satisfied that the Department is taking appropriate action to resolve the situation. Carer’s allowance section has recently completed a major service delivery modernisation project to improve the efficiency with which it processes applications from clients for...
- Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Invalidity Pension Applications (25 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: The Department is continually reviewing it processes in an effort to improve processing times and customer service. Many improvements have been introduced in Invalidity Pension Section. Since June 2011 all Invalidity Pension claims are processed on a new IT platform under the department's service delivery model project. A comprehensive business process improvement exercise has recently...
- Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (25 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: Tables detailing the processing times for appeals, by month, to date in 2012 and for all of 2011 are provided in the following table. Annual processing times for the years 2007 to 2010 are also included. Statistics of the monthly average processing times prior to 2011 are not held. These processing times are calculated from the registration date of the appeal to the date of its...
- Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Unemployment Levels (25 Oct 2012)
Joan Burton: The total number of persons on the Live Register at the end of September 2012 was 429,335. That total includes people in receipt of Jobseeker’s Allowance or Jobseeker’s Benefit and also includes people who were not in receipt of a payment at that time. The total number of people recorded as having had occupations in construction trade categories at that time was 111,769. The...