Results 26,181-26,200 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Appeals: Social Welfare Appeals (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: The Social Welfare Appeals Office has advised me that an appeal by the person concerned was registered in that office on 26 November 2011. It is a statutory requirement of the appeals process that the relevant Departmental papers and comments by or on behalf of the Deciding Officer on the grounds of appeal be sought. These papers were received in the Social Welfare Appeals Office on 16...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: I confirm that an application for carer's allowance has been received from the above named. On completion of the necessary investigations relating to all aspects of her claim, a decision will be made and the person concerned will be notified directly of the outcome. Some 7,698 carer's allowance applications are registered and awaiting a decision at present. A major service delivery...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: The over 80 allowance is an additional payment of â¬10 per week paid to people who are in receipt of a social welfare payment, including State pensions and who are over 80 years of age. It is not paid to qualified adults. The living alone increase is an additional payment of â¬7.70 per week made to people aged 66 years or over who are in receipt of certain social welfare payments,...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Appeals: Social Welfare Appeals (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: I confirm that an application for carer's allowance has been received from the above named. On completion of the necessary investigations relating to all aspects of her claim, a decision will be made and the person concerned will be notified directly of the outcome.
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: The average time taken to award an application in the quarter ended September 2011 was 17 weeks. Figures for the last quarter of 2011 and for January 2012 are unavailable as, due to the introduction of a new claims processing system in carer's allowance area, new claims are being processed on the new system while older claims are still being processed on the old system. As mentioned above,...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: Entitlement to carer's allowance is based on satisfying means, residency, full time care provision and medical suitability criteria. In the interest of fairness and equity, applications for carer's allowance are generally processed in order of the date the applications are received. The average time taken to award a claim to end of September 2011 was 17 weeks. This figure relates to the...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: The Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance (BSCFA) scheme operates from the beginning of June until the end of September each year. A person may qualify for payment BSCFA if he or she is in receipt of a social welfare or health service executive payment, is participating in an approved employment scheme or attending a recognised education or training course, and has household income...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Appeals: Social Welfare Appeals (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: I am advised by the Social Welfare Appeals Office that the supplementary welfare allowance, child benefit, disability allowance and domiciliary care allowance appeals of the person concerned have been determined by an Appeals Officer and notification of the Appeals Officers' decisions issued to the person on 1 February 2012. An appeal in relation to carer's allowance is currently being...
- Written Answers — Employment Support Services: Employment Support Services (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: The National Internship Scheme provides internship opportunities of either 6 or 9 months for unemployed individuals on the Live Register, in organisations in the private, public and community voluntary sectors. The scheme is limited to individuals who are currently on the Live Register and have been in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance/Benefit or are signing on for credits for at least 3 of...
- Written Answers — Community Employment Schemes: Community Employment Schemes (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: There are currently 1043 sponsors of Community Employment schemes, with 23,300 places. I fully intend to maintain this level of activity during 2012. As announced in the Pathways to Work, one of the five strands of the programme is to provide greater targeting of activation places and opportunities for job seekers - particularly those who are over one year unemployed. My Department will...
- Written Answers — Departmental Staff: Departmental Staff (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: I propose to take Questions Nos. 125 and 126 together. In the period since May 2008 some 952 staff have been redeployed to the Department to fill critical vacancies in local offices, Central Support Units and the Department's Inspectorate to deal with the increased volume of claims due to the downturn in the economy. Taking into account the numbers of staff who have left the Department...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Code: Social Welfare Code (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: I established an Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare in June 2011 to address a number of specific issues regarding the operation and interaction of the tax and social protection systems. The Group has been tasked with recommending cost-effective solutions as to how employment disincentives can be addressed and better poverty outcomes achieved, particularly child poverty outcomes. The...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: The Department is committed to delivering the best possible service to its customers. A total of 17,758 carer's allowance applications were registered in 2011 and 13,762 were processed in the same period. Some 7,698 applications are registered and awaiting a decision at present. A major service delivery modernisation project is underway to improve the efficiency of administration of the...
- Written Answers — Employment Support Services: Employment Support Services (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: The National Internship Scheme, JobBridge was launched on 1st July 2011. Currently, 5,163 interns have commenced internship placements. In addition, there are 2,266 internship placements currently advertised.
- Written Answers — Employment Support Services: Employment Support Services (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: As part of the overall Government approach to unemployment, the Department of Social Protection operates a range of employment support measures designed to encourage and support social welfare recipients of working age to reduce their dependency on welfare payments. These include tús â the community work placement initiative, the rural social scheme (rss), community employment (ce) and...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: There are currently 450 applications for domiciliary care allowance (DCA) on hands in the Department, with approximately 100 new claims received each week. Each application is assessed by one of the Department's medical assessors before being returned to the deciding officer for decision. Applicants are notified of the outcome of their applications in writing. Currently, it takes...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: My Department is fully committed to recovering 100% of overpayments arising as a result of suspected fraud or error. Effective debt recovery is seen as an integral part of the deterrent to fraudulent claiming. Debt holders should be aware that a departmental debt will remain on their records until fully recovered and will result in a reduction of all future entitlements up to and including...
- Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: Rent supplement provides short-term support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation, whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source. Since 2005, rent supplement expenditure has increased from â¬369 million to a provisional outturn of â¬503 million in 2011. The number of persons...
- Written Answers — Community Employment Schemes: Community Employment Schemes (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: The total number of persons employed on 32 individual CE projects in Co Kildare is currently 646. There are no plans in 2012 to reduce the allocated number of CE places in Co. Kildare. In line with the national review of CE, DSP Community Development Officers are in the process of engaging with all Sponsors of CE programmes in Co Kildare, in order to ensure that Sponsors are fully briefed...
- Written Answers — Community Employment Schemes: Community Employment Schemes (1 Mar 2012)
Joan Burton: There are no plans in 2012 to reduce the allocated number of Community Employment (CE) places in Co. Kildare. In line with the national review of CE, the Department's community development officers are in the process of engaging with all sponsors of CE programmes in Co. Kildare, in order to ensure that sponsors are fully briefed on the review. Sponsors are being issued with pro-forma...