Results 3,541-3,560 of 27,613 for speaker:Heather Humphreys

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I move amendment No. 1: In page 3, between lines 7 and 8, to insert the following: “PART 1 PRELIMINARY AND GENERAL Short title, construction and commencement 1. (1) This Act may be cited as the Social Welfare and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024. (2) The Social Welfare Acts, Part 2 and Chapter 1 of Part 3 shall be construed together as one Act. (3) Part 2 shall...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: There will be no delay. I am already doing some of these things on an administrative basis with child maintenance. I am not requiring people to go to court. It is really that we are not taking in the maintenance payments. I need to put it into legislation that we are not taking them into consideration for any new payments at the minute, but then other people will be able to come back in...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: About a month, I suppose. We just have to make some regulations around it.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I am going to make the regulations in two months. We are already doing much of what is in this Bill on an administrative basis. There are just a couple of details that need to be ironed out through regulations and I will be doing that as quickly as I possibly can. I am going to give the Deputy a date of two months from today.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: That is a matter of weeks.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I ask my officials to take note of that and hold me to it.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The Minister for children is bringing forward regulations, I understand, as soon as I get this legislation through. There is an urgency to this as we know. I assure the Deputy there should not be any delays in it. I am being told it will commence without delay.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I move amendment No. 2: In page 3, between lines 7 and 8, to insert the following: “Definitions 2. In this Act— “Minister” means the Minister for Social Protection; “Principal Act” means the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005.”.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I move amendment No. 3: In page 3, between lines 7 and 8, to insert the following: “PART 2 LIABLE RELATIVES AND CHILD MAINTENANCEDefinition (Part 2) 3. In this Part, “Act of 2015” means the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2015.”.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I move amendment No. 4: In page 5, between lines 33 and 34, to insert the following: “PART 3 BENEFICIARIES OF TEMPORARY PROTECTION CHAPTER 1 Amendment of Principal ActDisqualification from certain payments where person is resident in designated accommodation centre 7. The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 247C: “247D. (1)...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I will try to answer this as best I can. The amendment relates to applicants under the temporary protection directive, who are mainly Ukrainians because they qualified for that status when they came here. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is actively standing up arrival centres for use at the start of the new 90-day accommodation policy. The Department...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: They will not be treated differently under this proposal. This only applies to new Ukrainians coming into the country. Currently, there are Ukrainians in centres who are getting full social welfare payments under the temporary protection directive. That will remain the case. It is not anticipated to change that under this legislation.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: If they have status, regardless of where they come from, they will continue to receive the payments they are entitled to.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I am only changing things for those who are coming, specifically Ukrainians who are beneficiaries of the temporary protection directive. That is how we categorise them. I am not changing things for anyone else. Everything else remains as it is. It is only for new entrants who come to the country after the legislation is enacted.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Once they got status, they did not have to comply with the HRC.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The Deputy is correct. Ireland has welcomed more than 103,000 arrivals from Ukraine with 76,000 people currently living in State-provided accommodation, of whom 58,000 are in fully serviced accommodation. Ireland has welcomed 2.3% of those fleeing Ukraine who have come to the EU since the war, which is a significant response, and, as we know, people continue to come. A Government decision...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The Department has done an international comparison and we will send it on to the Deputy. The Oireachtas library has also done a comparison of this. The OECD has done an international comparison.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I do not have it to hand but it has been done and the Oireachtas library has it.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: It is not specified in the amendments but it is the intent. The amendments states, "other than while he or she is resident in a designated accommodation centre", so being in a designated accommodation centre qualifies them, if the Deputy understands what I am saying. Once new arrivals go to a centre, the reduced payment applies.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Social Welfare and Civil Law (Liable Relatives and Child Maintenance) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: These centres are only for new arrivals, by the way