Results 22,881-22,900 of 34,729 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: Members of the House have extensive experience with the appeals office.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: They come to us.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: Yes. My next question is a tricky one that has arisen recently for me. I will ask some broader questions after that. The Revenue Commissioners collect PRSI from the self-employed for the Department.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: Are they the Department's agent or do they do it separately? Are they doing it on the Department's behalf or is it their statutory function to do it and they give the Department the money?

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: Does the Department have a service level agreement with them?

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: I will come to that. The difficulty I have encountered is that when people reach 66 years of age and claim their State pension the exact amount of their contributions can rule them in or out for the contributory pension. It is absolutely crucial that what the Revenue Commissioners collect tallies with the number of contributions people believe they should have because if it does not, they...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: I suspect your officials know the point I am making. I think this has been in court.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: How many contributions are required to get a State contributory pension?

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: Fine. The person might have 518.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: I know. It is scaled down.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: Yes, because it affects their entitlement to the State contributory pension.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: We mentioned rent supplement and there is a decrease in the payments for that because it probably transferred to housing assistance payment.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: My other question is on mortgage interest supplement. We are due to pass a Finance Bill, although that is not your Department, to give tax breaks to people to buy houses at prices up to €600,000 while at the same time the mortgage interest supplement paid by the Department of Social Protection in 2013 was €21 million and €12 million in 2015. What are this year's and...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: What do you think the figure is for this year? One of the officials can find it while we are discussing this. We are going in different directions whereby under the Finance Bill, if one is on a high income one will get a tax relief to buy a house, while somebody struggling to pay a mortgage is on the scheme under the Department. It is a policy issue, so you cannot talk about that. The...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: No, it is because the scheme is closed.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: I wish to move on to debt recovery. There was an interesting conversation on that here today. I wish to discuss two debts - one is amounts owed to the Department by various claimants under the Vote and the other is amounts due to the social insurance fund from employers in respect of redundancy and insolvency payments. I never hear the same level of animation about chasing the debts under...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: Ms O'Donoghue understands the contrast.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 37 - Department of Social Protection
Chapter 9 - Regularity of Social Welfare Payments
Chapter 10 - Roll-out of the Public Services Card
Social Insurance Fund 2015 (20 Oct 2016)

Seán Fleming: That leads me to my second question on the Social Insurance Fund account. According to a note on page 12, the Department wrote off €36.7 million on 1 January 2015 because the opening balance was not correct. I have a problem with this. The previous year's figures, as presented to the Oireachtas, were overstated. According to page 13, a further adjustment to the redundancy debt...