Results 221-240 of 14,473 for speaker:Dara Calleary

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: Carer's allowance (CA) is a means-tested social assistance payment made to a person who is habitually resident in the State and who is providing full-time care and attention to a child or an adult who has such a disability that, as a result, they require that level of care. A primary qualifying condition for CA is that the applicant provides full-time care and attention to a person in...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The objective of the School Meals Programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement. A specific standard was set for School Meals under the Nutritional Standards for School Meals and...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: Primary weekly social welfare payments are intended to enable recipients to meet their basic day-to-day income needs. In addition to these primary payments, my Department also provides a range of other payments on a weekly, monthly, or less frequent basis. These payments are considered secondary in nature and cannot be made available to those who are not in receipt of a primary payment. ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: Treatment Benefit is a PRSI-based scheme which provides free dental and optical services, and assistance towards the provision of audiological appliances and hair replacement products, to people who satisfy certain qualifying conditions, and to their dependent spouses/partners. Applications for Treatment Benefit are now routinely submitted on-line via the Department's Welfare...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: Customers can download one or more of the over 122 application forms available on the department’s ‘Request Postal Application Forms’ webpage on gov.ie. Additionally, customers can order application forms on the department’s ‘Request Postal Application Forms’ webpage on gov.ie. Requests through this service are processed quickly, with application...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Code (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department provides a number of income supports for people with a disability. These include Disability Allowance, Blind Pension and Invalidity Pension. Both Disability Allowance and Blind Pension are means tested social assistance schemes, while Invalidity Pension is a social insurance based scheme. These are part of the suite of working age payments. In contrast, the State Pension,...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Code (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Government is very aware of the key role that family carers play in Irish society and the challenges they face. We are fully committed to supporting carers in that role. There have been a number of significant improvements made to the income thresholds in the means test in recent years. From July this year, the weekly income disregard will increase from €450 to €625 for...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Code (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: Carer's allowance (CA) is a means-tested social assistance payment made to a person who is habitually resident in the State and who is providing full-time care and attention to a child or an adult who has such a disability that, as a result, they require that level of care. I confirm that the person concerned has been in receipt of CA since 11 September 2008. Once claims are in payment,...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Insurance (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The estimated full-year cost of reducing the lower employer PRSI rate, currently at 8.9%, by 0.5 percentage points is approximately €50 million. This estimate does not take into account any possible changes in employer or employee behaviour, arising from changing the rate of the lower employer PRSI contribution. I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: In general, women working on farms are liable to social insurance contributions in the same manner as their spouses or civil partners and, consequently, would be entitled to a range of social insurance benefits, including maternity and pension benefits. Since 2014, certain spouses and civil partners of self-employed sole traders, including farmers, can pay self-employment contributions...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The person concerned reached pension age on 20 January 2025. An application for state pension (contributory) was received on 24 October 2024. The person concerned was notified through their MyWelfare account on 9 April 2025 that they were awarded 89.49% of the maximum rate state pension (contributory). This rate is based on their contribution record of 744 paid contributions, 660...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Schemes (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: All jobseekers, including those who are working part time and in receipt of a jobseekers payment from my department, are required to be genuinely seeking and available for full time employment and to engage with my Department's employment services. The Local Area Employment Services (LAES) is an employment assistance and advice service that supports and assists people who are long-term...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: Disability Allowance is the primary disability related social assistance scheme which is a means-tested payment for people with a disability who are aged between 16 and 66. In order to be eligible, the disability must be expected to last for at least one year. The allowance is also subject to a medical assessment and a habitual residency requirement. Estimated expenditure on Disability...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department is committed to ensuring that only those people who are eligible, receive welfare and other payments. Achieving this requires that robust safeguards are in place that secure our payment systems, detect possible fraud and error, and prevent possible fraudulent claiming. All applicants must provide proof of their identity when making a claim. The applicants must verify their...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Code (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department provides a number of income and employment supports for people with a disability. The income supports include Disability Allowance, Blind Pension and Invalidity Pension. Both Disability Allowance and Blind Pension are means tested social assistance schemes, while Invalidity Pension is a social insurance based scheme. Disability Allowance is the primary disability related...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Fuel Allowance is a payment of €33 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €924 each year) from late September to April, at an estimated cost of €400 million in 2025. At the end of December 2024, 413,934 households were in receipt of the Fuel Allowance payment. Based on similar numbers of households qualifying for the Fuel Allowance Payment during the 2025/26 fuel...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Living Alone Increase is an extra payment for recipients of certain social welfare payments who live alone. The current rate of increase is €22 per week a and is available to persons aged 66 or older who live alone and are in receipt of the State Pension (contributory and non-contributory), Widows, Widowers and Surviving Civil Partner's (contributory) Pension, Incapacity Supplement...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Treatment Benefit Scheme provides dental, optical, aural and hair replacement products and services to insured workers, the self-employed, retired people and their dependent spouse/partner who have the required number of social insurance (PRSI) contributions. The Department pays the full cost of an oral examination once a calendar year. In addition, an annual payment of €42 is...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Schemes (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Comprehensive Employment Strategy set out a number of actions for my Department. They included measures around early intervention, employment activation, and reform of employment supports, such as the Wage Subsidy Scheme. In recent years, my Department has introduced and reformed a number of supports to implement these recommendations and promote employment opportunities for people...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (29 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Social Welfare Appeals Office is an Office of the Department of Social Protection which is responsible for determining appeals against decisions in relation to social welfare entitlements. Appeals Officers are independent in their decision making functions. I am advised by the Social Welfare Appeals Office that an Appeals Officer, having fully considered all of the available evidence,...