Results 29,921-29,940 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Community welfare officers will be transferring from the HSE to the Department of Social Protection, and those arrangements should be completed, as the Deputy mentioned, by the end of September. The position of community welfare officer will still exist even though, because people will have payments processed in their local offices, the need for supplementary payments should decrease over...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: There is an amendment elsewhere in the Bill on that point. I will obtain a reference to the exact section for the Deputy.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Other countries have had great success in doing what I am advocating. Programmes to insulate people's homes provide high levels of employment, particularly for those who have experience in construction. A programme of this nature would provide an ideal way to get people who have lost their jobs in the construction sector back to work. That is why I commend the proposals of the Minister for...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: The purpose of section 8 is to clarify the position arising from the enactment of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010. One of the measures included in the Bill, which we have not debated extensively because everybody strongly agrees with it, is the introduction of parallel entitlements and changes in the social welfare system for those who enter a...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Yes. The difficulty was created by the Deputy's own party in government. When the then Minister, the late Brian Lenihan, announced that we would move to a universal social charge that implied that it would be within the structure of being similar to a universal social contribution. In the event, when the then Minister for Finance introduced his legislation it was a universal social charge...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: As I understand it the Minister presented a memorandum to the former Government. I understand the outcome of that was that there were to be discussions between him and the then Minister for Finance but in the event nothing got changed or amended. I am introducing this amendment today in regard to family income supplement to ensure that in the case of low paid families in work in particular...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: The point I was making is that it is the construction of the universal social charge by Fianna Fáil and the Green Party in Government that is the crux of the problem. The universal social charge is defined in the legislation as a tax. It is not a contribution even though, understandably, when the former Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan, first mentioned it in December 2009 in...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: The next budget is primarily a matter for the Minister for Finance, and I will draw his attention to what the Deputy has said. Providing for the FIS arrangement in respect of the universal social charge is as far as I can go within the parameters of this Bill.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh is correctly concerned about age discrimination. This Bill reflects the reality that older people, in general, enjoy better health and greater longevity than they did in the past.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: This is a blessing and bonus. It is important that people are allowed to work longer, if they so wish. The Government will examine providing for those who wish to postpone drawing down their State pension arrangements to enable them to receive an actuarially increased benefit. This is the case with several pension benefits structures in Ireland and Europe. Ireland's demographics, like...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: Fortunately, we were able to return. Working abroad can be a good and valuable experience. Many people who have developed businesses and entrepreneurship have gained experience from living abroad. While savings will be made if young people who were in receipt of social welfare benefits emigrate, it also means we are losing people who believe the country's outlook is not as positive as it...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: It is critical that people's homes should be insulated in order that the amount of fuel they are obliged to use will be reduced to a dramatic extent.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: It started between 1994 and 1997, when we brought in a homemaker's credits so that women who stayed at home caring got recognition.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: I will go through this in a minute. It has been a debate in Irish society for almost 20 years.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: I worked in hotels.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: I thank all the Deputies who contributed. It is important to say that from the early 1990s, there has been a continuous debate about how to structure pensions so everybody at work, and not only particularly wealthy people, who contribute through tax and social insurance pay for their own pensions and those of others when they come to retire. Happily, people are living longer, which is a...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: In terms of the employer job PRSI incentive scheme, which has been available for some time, as of 10 June 2011 applications were received from 480 employers in respect of 708 employees, 313 employers were awarded exemptions in respect of 429 employers and 157 employers had claims rejected in respect of 215 employees. The numbers involved in the existing scheme are relatively low. Deputy Ó...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: The jobs incentive is a stimulus package which offers incentives to employers to both retain staff and take on extra staff. I cannot offer evidence to Deputy Higgins in advance of the measures coming into effect. What will happen after the 1 July is that the minimum wage will be reinstated and employers will have a reduction of 50% in the rate of PRSI for people earning €356 per week or...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for the positive proposals he has made. I do not propose to accept the amendments because of the nature of the Bill and the way they are phrased. However, I accept the principle that the Deputy and other Deputies have set out, that we should have regular assessments the results of various initiatives. The reduction in employers' PRSI, as set out in the Bill, is...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Jun 2011)

Joan Burton: The dependent parent's pension scheme is payable to the parent of a person who dies as a result of an occupational accident, provided that the parent has been wholly or mainly maintained by the deceased person. There are only a small number of cases of this payment. After a long and exhaustive search by the Department, the total number of such payments being made came to five. There is no...