Results 1-20 of 3,196 for speaker:Emer Higgins
- Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Enterprise Support Services (9 Sep 2024)
Emer Higgins: Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) play an extremely important role at local level, as part of a supportive ecosystem, providing their services to small businesses and promoting entrepreneurship within towns and communities across the country. They provide a signposting service for all government supports available to SMEs and can provide information/referrals to other relevant bodies under...
- Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Redundancy Payments (9 Sep 2024)
Emer Higgins: The Redundancy Payments Act 1967 sets out the formula for calculating the minimum redundancy payment which must be made to eligible employees when they are made redundant by their employer. This is referred to as “statutory redundancy”, and it is a lump sum payment based on an employee’s pay and length of service. An eligible employee is entitled to two weeks' pay for...
- Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Employment Rights (9 Sep 2024)
Emer Higgins: The EU Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages requires Member States with a collective bargaining coverage below 80%, such as Ireland, to publish an action plan to promote collective bargaining. The European Commission Expert Group's Report, released last November, is clear that the content of the action plan is entirely up to Member States, in consultation with the social partners. According to...
- Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Enterprise Support Services (9 Sep 2024)
Emer Higgins: Balanced regional development is a priority of mine and of Government. Government has provided substantial funding through a number of enterprise funding schemes to assist regions to support enterprise activity, promote regional growth and create jobs. Since 2017, my Department, through Enterprise Ireland, has approved funding for 79 enterprise focused projects through the Regional Enterprise...
- Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Employment Rights (9 Sep 2024)
Emer Higgins: On the 26thof June 2024, I signed the Employment Regulation Order (ERO) for the Security Sector which came into force on 1stof July 2024. The ERO provided for a wage increase to €14.50 per hour from that date. The full details of the ERO are available here: www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2024/si/319/made/en/ No further legislative changes to the rates of pay and work conditions for...
- Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Job Creation (9 Sep 2024)
Emer Higgins: The Irish labour market remains exceptionally resilient as we move through 2024, with another successive quarter showing a new record for the highest number of people employed in our country. More than half of the jobs created in the past year were outside of Dublin, this is a testament to this Government’s commitment to achieving more balanced regional enterprise development. The...
- Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Job Creation (9 Sep 2024)
Emer Higgins: In 2018, the National Planning Framework (NPF) replaced the National Spatial Strategy as the overall spatial planning and development strategy for Ireland. The NPF, together with the National Development Plan (NDP), combine to form Project Ireland 2040, the overarching policy and planning framework for the social, economic and cultural development of Ireland. Government approved the process...
- Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Enterprise Support Services (9 Sep 2024)
Emer Higgins: Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) play an extremely important role at local level, as part of a supportive ecosystem, providing their services to small businesses and promoting entrepreneurship within towns and communities across the country. They provide a signposting service for all government supports available to SMEs and can provide information/referrals to other relevant bodies under...
- Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Business Supports (9 Sep 2024)
Emer Higgins: I encourage anyone who is setting up their own business, to first speak with a business advisor in their Local Enterprise Office (LEO). The LEOs play an extremely important role at local level, as part of a supportive ecosystem, providing their services direct to small businesses and promoting entrepreneurship within towns and communities across the country and are best placed to provide...
- Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Employment Rights (9 Sep 2024)
Emer Higgins: When the Sick Leave Act 2022 commenced on 1 January 2023, the initial statutory entitlement was up to 3 days’ sick leave, which increased to 5 days on 1 January 2024. This entitlement could potentially increase to 7 days up to a maximum of 10 days. Section 6(1) of the Act provides that the Minister can, in consultation with the Minister for Social Protection, vary the number of...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Film Industry (11 Jul 2024)
Emer Higgins: In relation to the Deputy's specific question around legislation in this area, it will be in the context of the sharing of royalty payments between producers and performers of recorded music. I recently sought and received Government approval to address this matter by amending the primary copyright legislation. Accordingly, drafting will proceed on the relevant Bill shortly. As the...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Film Industry (11 Jul 2024)
Emer Higgins: Go raibh maith agat, a Theachta. As the Deputy will be aware, copyright legislation ensures that all authors and performers, including actors, performers, writers and directors, are protected by provisions of copyright legislation where the authors or performers choose to transfer their rights to another party, for example, to producers in the film and TV industry. The transfer of rights is...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Film Industry (11 Jul 2024)
Emer Higgins: It is regulated more.
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Film Industry (11 Jul 2024)
Emer Higgins: To clarify, Regulation 27 is about transparency. Once you have your transparency, Regulation 28 kicks in and that offers authors and performers a contractual adjustment mechanism when the remuneration originally agreed turns out to be disproportionately low compared to the success of their work. That is important to clarify. To be clear, the existing copyright legislation ensures that...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Film Industry (11 Jul 2024)
Emer Higgins: Well done.
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Low Pay (11 Jul 2024)
Emer Higgins: The Deputy alluded in his opening remarks to the fact that he has a Private Members' Bill on this issue. I draw the Deputy's attention to the line in the Low Pay Commission recommendation that states that sub-minimum rates should not be abolished before 1 January 2025. The reason for that is that the Low Pay Commission asked the Government to consider the report and its recommendations to...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Low Pay (11 Jul 2024)
Emer Higgins: There is international evidence that this has happened in other countries when decisions like this were taken-----
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Low Pay (11 Jul 2024)
Emer Higgins: -----and that is part of the rationale for further investigation on this.
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Low Pay (11 Jul 2024)
Emer Higgins: It is not.
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Low Pay (11 Jul 2024)
Emer Higgins: It is-----