Results 4,041-4,060 of 12,033 for speaker:Regina Doherty

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: State Pensions Payments (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I propose to take Questions Nos. 12, 16 and 21 together. Since late September 2018, my Department has been planning and developing processes to review the social insurance records of approximately 90,000 pensioners born on or after 1 September 1946, who had a reduced rate State pension contributory entitlement based on post-budget 2012 rate bands.  These payments are being...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: State Pensions Payments (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: Nobody was prioritised. Letters were sent out randomly and nobody was particularly selected because of their age, the length of time or anything like that. The ambition is for us to ensure that we carry out reviews of all 90,000 cases as quickly as we can. In response to Deputy Aindreas Moynihan regarding the staging of the recruitment, that is how long it took us to find staff. It...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Child Benefit Payments (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I have already outlined the legal and data protection issues with regard to sharing data that prohibit doing what the Deputy has suggested, which was originally suggested in the programme for Government. I can absolutely assure the Deputy that we take a proactive approach to ensuring that child benefit is paid only to people who are entitled to it. The fraud and error surveys the Department...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Child Benefit Payments (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I totally appreciate the result the Deputy is trying to achieve, I just do not think this is the right method to do so. He is right; a phenomenal number of children, especially young boys, are absent from school for more than 20 days, particularly recently. However, it is certainly not their parents' fault and penalising them through child benefit will not fix the problem. We have a real...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Pensions Reform (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: As stated in the roadmap for pensions reform, the Government proposes to implement a supplementary retirement savings system known as automatic enrolment, AE, by 2022.  This will see employees without personal retirement savings automatically enrolled into a quality-assured retirement savings system with freedom of choice to opt out. I launched a straw man public...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I have the floor. I have always said that I do not know the size of the problem but whether it is ten people or 10,000 people, the legislation must be robust enough to protect them. We have a requirement to put legislation on our Statute Book to protect even one person and that is why I am bringing forward Government legislation. That is my job. I am quite happy to look at legislation...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I am aware that Deputy Boyd Barrett knows this but I will read my Department's reply for the benefit of those who do not. A fixed-term employee means a person who has entered into a contract of employment where the end of the contract is determined by an objective condition such as arriving at a specific date, completing a specific task or the occurrence of a specific event. An employee...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I am quite sure that lots of industries and companies in this country believe they are exceptional but none of them is above the law.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: Again, nobody is above the law. I ask the Deputy to call me later and we will progress this. I am not happy to hear the Deputy's allegation that people have been blacklisted following an appearance before a Joint Oireachtas Committee and have not worked since then. We will take care of it.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Child Benefit Payments (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I thank the Deputy for his question. Child benefit is the main policy instrument for assisting families with the costs of raising children. It is a universal payment, which I very much support. It is paid in respect of all qualified children up to the age of 16, or to the age of 18 if they are in full-time education or have a disability. It is paid monthly to more than 630,000 families in...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: Again, the Deputy-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I am happy to take the questions together.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I ask Deputy Niall Collins to supply the details of the case to me before he leaves the Chamber. Nobody should be denied a PPS number. I will address the matter today. I am glad that we all can agree but I do not subscribe to the view of certain Deputies that I favour one set of organisations over another. I sit at monthly meetings with both our social partners who represent our union...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Local Employment Service (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I hope I have been here long enough to prove the Deputy wrong. Last Thursday, I met representatives from the Irish Local Development Network, ILDN, jobs clubs and CV clubs, which are in all counties and provide invaluable services that Intreo offices and JobPath cannot provide. No two jobseekers have the same barriers to employment so the services the State offers need to recognise that and...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Local Employment Service (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I do not know what the obsession is with trying to make everybody be the same.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Local Employment Service (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I am talking about the Deputy's comparison of local employment schemes with jobs clubs, Intreo and JobPath. We have a range of services because we have a range of people with different barriers to getting employment. It is for this reason that we have back to education allowances, job incentive schemes, training opportunities, employment opportunities, youth employment support schemes,...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: I propose to take Questions Nos. 6, 10, 14, 26 and 39 together. My job is to progress Government legislation and not to progress Opposition legislation. There is nothing stopping any Member of an Opposition party from progressing his or her own legislation and I certainly would not impede it. Disguised employment, or bogus self-employment, occurs when businesses deliberately misclassify...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Social Welfare Benefits Waiting Times (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: The first thing I need to say to Deputy Smith is with regard to the lady she referred to. If Deputy Smith gives me her details I will intervene personally. I need to put on record that anyone or everyone who is waiting for a decision for a payment for any of our schemes is entitled to apply for community welfare through our supplementary welfare allowance. Applicants will get it if they...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Social Welfare Benefits Waiting Times (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: If Deputy Smith wishes to give me the details of the lady later on, I will intervene. I am not disputing the numbers cited by Deputy Smith. What I am saying is that we have taken several steps to try to remedy the difficulty we have with regard to a number of issues relating to the length of time for appeals. The first point is that we need to put more staff in the area. We have a...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Social Welfare Benefits Waiting Times (4 Apr 2019)

Regina Doherty: We have a full complement of medical officers. We are not in a recruitment phase. It is not the case that if we had more medical officers it would make it easier or quicker. It is a question of the complexity of the medical evidence that needs to be provided for us. That needs to be adjudicated upon and it is a difficult process. It needs to go back and forth. That is what causes the...