Results 721-740 of 15,374 for speaker:Dara Calleary

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...

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

Dara Calleary: A community welfare officer is at Higher Executive Officer (HEO) civil service grade. The cost of the annual rate of the entry point of the HEO payscale is €58,264. Recruitment of HEOs is carried out via large-scale recruitment competitions both internally and via PublicJobs and therefore the cost of recruiting a single community welfare officer is not available.

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

Dara Calleary: I propose to take Questions Nos. 623 and 625 together. 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 €400 million in 2025. At the end of December 2024, 413,934 households were in receipt of the Fuel Allowance payment. Based on similar numbers of households qualifying...

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

Dara Calleary: As of the 30th April 2025, the number of part-time, seasonal, casual and short-time workers in receipt of Jobseeker’s benefit requested by the Deputy is 5,015.

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

Dara Calleary: Working Family Payment (WFP) is a weekly in-work support which provides an income support for employees on low earnings with children. To qualify for Working Family Payment, the customer must be working a minimum of 38 hours per fortnight in ongoing insurable employment and have at least one qualified child who normally resides with them. The number of customers currently in receipt of...

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

Dara Calleary: The number of people in receipt of Disability Allowance, Blind Pension and Invalidity Pension at the end of April 2025 is set out in the table below. There is no recipients of a combination of schemes as there is no entitlement to do so. Scheme: Number of recipients: Disability Allowance 169,152 Blind Pension 924 ...

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

Dara Calleary: The cost of extending the One-Parent Family Payment by five years, until the youngest child reaches age 12, is difficult to accurately estimate as it is challenging to predict the future movement of customers into and between schemes and the subsequent cost implications relating to secondary benefits. Some people whose youngest child is aged between 7 and 12 may be in receipt of...

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

Dara Calleary: As part of Budget 2025 last October, the rate of payment for the Carer's Support Grant was increased from the level of €1,850 paid in June last year by €150 to €2,000, which will be paid next month. The estimated full-year cost of increasing the Carer's Support Grant by a further €50, from €2,000 to €2,050, is €8.2 million. This costing is...

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

Dara Calleary: The State Pension (Contributory) (SPC) is funded from the Social Insurance Fund through the contributions paid by workers. The rate of payment reflects the number of social insurance contributions paid over a working life. Eligibility for SPC is based on a number of criteria:Being aged 66 or over.Having entered the Social Insurance system 10 years before you intend to drawdown your...

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

Dara Calleary: The estimated cost of a once off €50 payment to all recipients of the Carer’s Support Grant, Carer’s Benefit and Carer’s Allowance is €7.5 million. Please note that recipients of both Carer's Allowance and Carer's Benefit automatically qualify for the standard Carer's Support Grant payment, paid annually in June. This costing is based on the estimated...

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

Dara Calleary: My Department administers several schemes that could be considered State Pension Payments. I have listed below in tabular form the current rates for those pensions and the number of recipients at the end of April 2025. Scheme Name Recipients at end of April 2025 Current Maximum Weekly Rate Estimated Yearly Cost of Increasing Payment by €1 per week ...

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

Dara Calleary: Age-related rates apply to 18 to 24 year old's in receipt of the means-tested Jobseeker's Allowance scheme and do not apply to Jobseeker's Pay-Related Benefit or Jobseeker’s Benefit. The standard maximum weekly rates under the benefit schemes are €450 and €244 respectively subject to previous earnings and PRSI contributions. Age-related reduced rates on Jobseeker's...