Results 701-720 of 15,365 for speaker:Dara Calleary

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Staff (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The estimated full year cost of one additional full-time equivalent Medical Assessor to my department would be €95,722. This figure is broken down in the table below. Please note that the annual salary is based on the first point of the Civil Service Medical Assessor salary scale. - Full Year Cost Annual Salary (1st point of scale) ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: Carer's Allowance is the main income support scheme for carers in the community, with 99,421 recipients and an estimated expenditure of over €1.24 billion in 2025. Its primary aim is to support those whose earning ability is significantly reduced due to full-time caring responsibilities. Carer’s Allowance is means-tested to target the support to those most in need. From 3...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: Childcare workers who are not paid outside of term time and who apply for a social welfare payment are included as Educational Sector Workers (ESWs). ESWs who wish to avail of income support while temporarily laid-off during the school breaks can apply for a jobseeker’s payment. They must satisfy all the qualifying conditions to receive a payment. This includes completing the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The main income supports to carers provided by my department are Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance and the Carer’s Support Grant with spending expected to exceed €1.9 billion in 2025. The half-rate Carer’s Allowance, introduced in 2007 allows full-time carers, getting certain payments such as the State Pension, to keep their...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department provides a suite of income supports for those unable to work due to illness or disability. These include insurance-based schemes, based on Pay Related Social Insurance contributions, for example Invalidity Pension and means-tested social assistance schemes, for example Disability Allowance. Eligibility for the Department's income supports is not dependent on the type or...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: Jobseeker's Pay-Related Benefit is a new social insurance income support which has replaced the Jobseeker's Benefit scheme for people who are fully unemployed and whose first day of unemployment is on or after 31 March 2025. Pay-related benefit means that a person's rate of payment is linked to their previous earnings, subject to maximum and minimum rates. Under this scheme, the weekly...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: 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. There is a nutritional standard in place for the School Meals Programme since its inception. The...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: 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. The Nutritional Standards for School Meals were developed by a technical Nutrition Subgroup comprised...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: I propose to take Questions Nos. 604 to 607, inclusive, 610 and 611 together. Under the law as currently enacted, entitlement to a Widows, Widowers or Surviving Civil Partner’s Contributory pension is only available to a surviving partner who was party to a marriage or civil partnership, including where the marriage or civil partnership was dissolved. As the Deputy is aware, on...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: Widow's, Widower's or Surviving Civil Partner's (Contributory) Pension (WCP) is a weekly payment to the husband, wife or civil partner of a deceased person. The number of claimants, or recipients, who were separated or divorced before being widowed is shown in the table below. It is important to note that the Department does not get notified of divorces or separations, and this status may...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The statistical breakdown the Deputy has requested is not recorded or available. It is not possible for the Department to provide this information. I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Code (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Government acknowledges the valuable role that family carers play and is fully committed to supporting carers in that role. This commitment is recognised in the Programme for Government. Carer’s Allowance is the main scheme by which the Department provides income support to carers in the community. There are currently 99,421 people in receipt of this payment with expenditure...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: Carer's allowance (CA) is a means-tested social assistance payment made to a person who is habitually resident in the State and who is providing full-time care and attention to a child or an adult who has such a disability that, as a result, they require that level of care. I can confirm that the person concerned has been in receipt of CA since 14 September 2017. On 20 January 2025, the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Investigations (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: There is a Memorandum of Understanding between my Department and An Garda Síochána which provides for the secondment of members of An Garda Síochána to my Department for the purposes of detecting and investigating social welfare fraud. The Memorandum of Understanding requires that any data exchange between my Department and Gardaí on secondment is subject to the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Legislative Process (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: Under the law as currently enacted, entitlement to a Widows, Widowers or Surviving Civil Partner’s Contributory pension is only available to a surviving partner who was party to a marriage or civil partnership. On 22nd January 2024, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on the entitlement of an unmarried cohabitant to a Widower's Contributory Pension. The Supreme Court...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Central Statistics Office publishes detailed data on 'Arrivals from Ukraine in Ireland' (www.cso.ie/en/statistics/population/arrivalsfromukraineinir eland/) using administrative data from a number of Departments including the Department of Social Protection. Data from selected weeks is shown in the below table. Note that an individual can have more than one active claim, and hence...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: 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. I am advised by the Social Welfare Appeals Office that an Appeals Officer, having fully considered all of the available...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: 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 scheme operates from June to September each year. The allowance is payable in respect of eligible children between the ages of 4 and 17 in respect of whom a Child Support...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: I propose to take Questions Nos. 619, 620 and 626 together. Fuel Allowance is a means-tested payment to assist pensioners and other long-term social welfare dependent householders with their winter heating costs. The payment is a contribution towards heating costs; it is not intended to meet these costs in full. The payment is made over the winter season - from September to April - at the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (20 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: I propose to take Questions Nos. 621 and 635 together. Child Benefit is a universal monthly payment made to families with children up to the age of 16 years. The payment continues to be paid in respect of children until their nineteenth birthday who are in full-time education, or who have a disability. Child Benefit is currently paid to over 660,000 families in respect of over 1.3 million...