Results 3,761-3,780 of 27,613 for speaker:Heather Humphreys

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Reviews (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: My Department is committed to working to ensure that services and information can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people, regardless of their age, ability or disability. In developing our communications, we use the guidelines outlined in the Customer Communications Toolkit for the Public Service - A Universal Design Approach. The guidance in this...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Reviews (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: My Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers, ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible. In general, eligibility to social welfare schemes which involve?medical or caring conditionality take longer to process than non-medical schemes, and may require a review of a more in-depth level of...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Policies (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I propose to take Questions Nos. 930 and 935 together. The Free Travel scheme provides free travel on the main public and private transport services for those eligible under the scheme. There are over one million customers with direct eligibility. The estimated expenditure on free travel in 2024 is €104 million. Since 2017, people moving from certain long-term disability schemes such...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Policies (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Domiciliary Care Allowance is a monthly payment to a parent or guardian for a child aged up to 16 who has a severe disability and requires care and attention substantially over and above that required by other children their age. It ceases to be payable when a child reaches 16 years of age. The young person can then apply for Disability Allowance if they meet the eligibility requirements. ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Data (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: 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. Following the expansion of the programme in recent years, some 2,600 schools and organisations, covering...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Data (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance scheme provides a once-off payment to eligible families to assist with the costs of clothing and footwear when children start or return to school each autumn. The allowance is payable in respect of eligible children between the ages of 4 and 17 in respect of whom a qualified child allowance is being paid, and eligible children between the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Data (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Section 9 of the Irish Sign Language (ISL) Act, 2017 assigns responsibility to the Minister for Social Protection to provide funds to facilitate users of Irish Sign Language to access social, educational and cultural events and services (including medical) and other activities. I have assigned the implementation of these responsibilities to the Citizens Information Board (CIB), the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Data (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The Green Paper on Disability Reform addresses my department’s commitment under the Roadmap for Social Inclusion to develop and consult on proposals to restructure long-term disability payments and to simplify the system. The Green Paper’s main proposal is to introduce a new long-term, three-tiered disability payment with associated employment supports. This new payment...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Invalidity Pension (IP) is payable to an insured person who satisfies certain Social Insurance (PRSI) contribution conditions and who is permanently incapable of work due to an illness or incapacity and for no other reason. Applicants must have at least 260 (5 years) paid PRSI contributions class (A, E, H or S) since entering social insurance and 48 contributions paid or credited in the last...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: 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. The Social Welfare Appeals Office has advised me that an appeal by the person concerned was registered in that office on the 5th of...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The European Commission made a non-binding recommendation for each individual Member State on the recognition of COVID-19 as an occupational disease. The Commission did not make a recommendation in relation to long COVID. I recently published and laid a report before the Oireachtas entitled ‘Report on measures to include long COVID in the Occupational Injuries Benefit...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Data (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Rent supplement continues to play a key role in supporting families and individuals in private rented accommodation, with the scheme supporting 8,064 active recipients at the end of December 2023. The provisional expenditure for rent supplement paid by the Department of Social Protection at end of December 2023 was almost €62.9 million. The scheme provides short-term income...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Meetings (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Strengthening bilateral relations with the US is a priority for Ireland as set out in our Programme for Government, as well as in our Strategy for the US and Canada (2019-2025). While I have not been in contact with my US counterpart directly during 2023, I look forward to engaging with the US Administration on issues as they arise and in particular on our bilateral social security agreement....

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Policies (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Disablement Benefit is part of the Occupational Injuries Benefit scheme. This scheme caters for people injured or incapacitated by an accident at work or while travelling to or from work. The scheme also covers people who have contracted a disease as a result of the type of work they do. Disablement Benefit is a compensation payment and can be paid alongside other social welfare...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Policies (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: 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 €382 million in 2024. The purpose of this payment is to assist these households with their energy costs. The criteria for Fuel Allowance are framed in order to direct limited resources in as targeted a manner as possible....

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The person concerned reached pension age on 2 October 2022. An application for State Pension (contributory) was received on 26 July 2022. The person concerned has a total of 1027 reckonable contributions and 77 credits from their date of entry into insurable employment in 1973 to 2022 which equates to a yearly average of 23 contributions. This gave entitlement to a reduced State Pension...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: 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. Following the expansion of the programme in recent years, some 2,600 schools and organisations, covering...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Data (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The total number of PPSNs issued to beneficiaries of temporary protection in 2022 was just over 33,800. To date, my Department has issued almost 104,000 PPSNs to beneficiaries of temporary protection. Just over 68,000 of these are in respect of persons aged between 18 and 66 years. Revenue records indicate that 24,256 individuals had an active employment under the Temporary Protection...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The Carer’s Support Grant (CSG) is an annual payment made to full-time carers who satisfy certain conditions. The person claiming the Grant must:Be aged 16 or over and ordinarily resident in this StateCare for the person on a full-time basisCare for the person for a continuous period of at least six months – this period must include the first Thursday in JuneLive with the person...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (17 Jan 2024)

Heather Humphreys: 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. The Social Welfare Appeals Office has advised me that an appeal by the person concerned was registered on the 11th January...