Results 5,161-5,180 of 12,033 for speaker:Regina Doherty

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Illness Benefit Applications (15 Jan 2019)

Regina Doherty: The Department administers the Illness Benefit scheme to those customers who cannot work because they are sick or ill provided they are covered by the appropriate class of social insurance (PRSI) and satisfy the PRSI conditions. The person concerned does not satisfy the PRSI qualifying conditions for a payment of Illness Benefit. However she is receiving credited contributions in respect...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Correspondence (15 Jan 2019)

Regina Doherty: My Department aims to provide the best possible service at all times. The scale of the Department is very significant; it deals with over 70 separate schemes and services and processed a total of 82.2 million individual payments in 2017, with 1.6 million weekly social welfare payments being made every single week. The Department is committed to providing an excellent service to those we...

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: I thank every Member in this House and in Seanad Éireann for their positive constructive participation in recent years on this Bill. One thing this shows is that every Member of this House and the Upper House has compassion and care for people who find themselves in less secure situations than we do. I want to pay particular tribute to a former Member. He is not in this House anymore...

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: While that sounds incredibly reasonable, the difficulty is that there is an amendment and a subsequent one in the Bill that do not allow me the time to commence them after a couple of months or even after a public consultation process. There is an amendment in the Bill that includes a date, after which the Bill cannot be commenced. Originally it was six months, but we had an argument and...

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: The legislation is there and it works. I say to Deputy Bríd Smith that the advertising campaign that was run was not done to try to ascertain the size of the market, for the want of a better word to use. It was done because the vast majority of people in this country do not know that they can reclassify their employment status, that there is a section in the Department to help people...

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: Deputy Coppinger gives me too much credit. With the legislative programme and the policy work of the Department, it is not physically possible to progress everything. I think I am deadly, but I am not that deadly. The work has progressed and will be brought forward in the new year.

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: I have no problem with Deputy O'Dea's amendment except it did not go through any of the pre-legislative scrutiny or public consultation. I was upset here in July because, had we accepted the amendment as we did, I then would have had to go through all of that pre-legislative scrutiny and public consultation before I could bring the Bill to the Seanad. We would not be standing here and...

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: I thank everybody for their contributions. The one thing I can safely say is that we are all in agreement regarding the fact that there are people in this country who are made bogusly self-employed through no fault or acquiescence on their part. I do not yet know the size of that cohort of people. I do not know if it is as small as some people say it is or as large as Deputy Brady says it...

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: Section 13 of the Bill, as passed by Dáil Éireann, contained a definition of the employment regulation order for the purposes of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. There is, however, already a definition of "employment regulation order" in section 16(2) of the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015 and we felt it was confusing and unnecessary to have two definitions. We...

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: Seanad amendment No. 3 was made to improve the drafting of the table of bands of weekly working hours in section 16 of the Bill, which were put forward by Sinn Féin. It is not intended to alter the width of the bands in any way, shape or form. The amendment emerged because the Office of the Attorney General had advised against using the terms "of more" and "less than" in the table....

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: This amendment addresses a previous amendment proposed by Deputy Willie O'Dea to tackle bogus self-employment. We have agreed to remove the relevant provision from the Bill and confine our efforts to introducing new legislation next year to identify and address the issues that we all know exist. While we may have different views on the extent of these practice, we all accept that it is not...

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: This was accepted as an amendment to Deputy O'Dea's amendment to commence the legislation within six months. It was changed in the Seanad to reduce it to three months.

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: From the Seanad (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: The law will become law when the President signs it, so the Deputy might have misunderstood the press release I issued on foot of it passing all Stages in the Seanad. I intend to commence the law on 1 March, which is well within the three months. It is just over two months. The reason I have agreed with the WRC is that it has asked for a number of weeks to carry out an awareness campaign,...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Budget 2019 (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: The budget is poverty proofed every single year because the aim in giving back workers more of the tax the Government takes out of their pockets is to improve their financial status. The aim in increasing financial payments under every single scheme in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is to improve the financial status of those who are entirely reliant on social...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Budget 2019 (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: I am especially mindful of the draw on people's pockets at this time of year, not just of the the people about whom the Deputy is talking who are entirely reliant on social welfare, and it was the main driver of my seeking an increase in the Christmas bonus, a term I do not like. I think we should call it something else. The extra payment given to families who are entirely reliant on social...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Budget 2019 (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: -----because it is the most significant and impactful scheme we have ever had in the history of the State in helping those who are long-term unemployed to get back into employment. I am sorry, a Cheann Comhairle.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: State Pensions (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: I propose to take Questions Nos. 52, 59, 61 and 87 together. I might attempt to finish on a positive note. I thank Deputy Heydon who has had a particular interest in recent months in representing women in the main from his constituency until we get this over the line. In late September, following the phased recruitment of more than 70 temporary staff, the examination of...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: State Pensions (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: The Deputy should not apologise for asking questions. I doubt that there is any Deputy in the House who does not meet women who ask the same questions at the weekend. I certainly do. Of the 79,000 who received a letter, we have completed a review of social insurance records for approximately 55,000. Therefore, there will be no need for us to interact with that cohort as the system is...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Working Family Payment Data (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: The working family payment, WFP, is an in-work support which provides an income top-up for employees on low earnings who have children. The WFP is designed to prevent in-work poverty for low-paid workers with children to offer them a financial incentive to take up employment. Our latest figures, which are from the end of November 2018, show the WFP was in payment to 3,239 civil and...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Working Family Payment Data (19 Dec 2018)

Regina Doherty: I am not sure that more than 86 families applied. Although I may have given the impression that other people applied for but did not receive the payment, that was not what I intended to say. Rather, my point was that some 86 members of the Defence Forces were in receipt of the payment at the end of November. The rates of pay in any public sector occupation are not set by reference to...