Results 901-920 of 27,613 for speaker:Heather Humphreys

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (19 Sep 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 20th...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The Fuel Allowance is a contribution towards the energy costs of a household. The payment of €33 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €924 each year) is paid from late September to April to assist households with their energy costs. Under the qualifying conditions for fuel allowance a person must satisfy all the qualifying criteria including household composition. In this...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: 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 almost 677,000 families in respect of over 1.2 million children with an estimated expenditure of...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: I propose to take Questions Nos. 209 and 211 together. My Department has made significant improvements to self-employed people's access to social insurance schemes in recent years, including extending access to invalidity pension, jobseeker's benefit and treatment benefit to the self-employed. These improvements are part of the Government’s stated aim of creating a supportive...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Eligibility for the State Pension (Contributory) (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 SPC. Having a minimum of 520 paid social insurance contributions (i.e., 10 years reckonable PRSI contributions). It should be noted that having 10 years of paid social insurance contributions...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The estimated full year cost of a €10, €20, €25 and €30 increase in weekly social welfare payments is outlined in the table below. It should also be noted that these costings include proportionate increases for qualified adults and for those on reduced rates of payment, where relevant. Social Insurance Schemes Increase by €10...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The estimated full year cost of a €10, €12 €20 and €25 weekly increase to Disability Allowance and Carer's Allowance are outlined in the table1 below. Domiciliary Care Allowance is a monthly payment the estimated full year cost of a €10, €12 €20 and €25 monthly increase is outlined in table 2. Table 1: All costs are in millions of...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Income disregards ensure that, where people are in receipt of a social assistance payment and are working, their income from work to the level of the income disregard, is not assessed in the means test. As part of Budget 2024, I further increased the Carer's Allowance disregard to €450 for a single person, and €900 for carers with a spouse/partner from June. A detailed...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: 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. Spending in 2024 is expected to amount to over €1.7 billion on these payments. Domiciliary Care Allowance is a non means tested payment payable to a parent or guardian in respect of a child aged under 16 who...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: 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. Spending on these payments is expected to amount to over €1.7 billion this year. The Carer’s Allowance scheme is the main scheme by which the Department provides income support to carers in the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Self-employed workers whose income is €5,000 or more in a contribution year are liable to pay social insurance contributions at the PRSI class S rate of 4%, subject to a minimum annual payment of €500. Such contributors are currently covered for a wide range of social insurance benefits including State pension (contributory), widow's, widower's or surviving civil partner's...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: My department provides a comprehensive package of carers’ income supports including Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance and the Carer’s Support Grant. At the end of August, there were 97,407 people in receipt of Carer's Allowance. Combined spending on all these payments to carers in 2024 is expected to exceed €1.7 billion. ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The estimated annual cost of increasing the carer's support grant by €25 per year, €50 per year, €75 per year and €100 per year, is set out in the table below. Increase Cost €25 €4.2M €50 €8.5M €75 €12.7M ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: 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. Spending on these payments is expected to amount to over €1.7 billion this year. The Carer’s Allowance scheme is the main scheme by which the Department provides income support to carers in the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The Back to Education Allowance provides income support for jobseekers and others in receipt of certain social welfare payments who pursue full-time courses of education at further or higher level. The focus of the scheme is to assist people improve their qualifications and as a result improve their access to sustainable employment. The Government has provided €35.7 million for the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (19 Sep 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. Only one allowance is paid per household. The criteria for Fuel Allowance are framed in order to direct the limited...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Support Services (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: The Department has developed a “Be Disability Aware” eLearning unit that is provided to all staff, including staff in Intreo Centres. This is an introduction to disability and aims to raise awareness of what disability is and how disability is defined by law. It also aims to increase the learner’s knowledge about different types of disability, how to talk about...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (19 Sep 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 9th August 2024....

Written Answers — Department of Rural and Community Development: Community Development Projects (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: Under the 2022 Community Centre Investment Fund, over €45.8 million was committed for improvement and refurbishment works on over 860 existing community centres across Ireland. In April, I approved funding of €30 million for the construction of 12 new community centres across nine counties. In June this year, I was delighted to announce a further round of funding to...

Written Answers — Department of Rural and Community Development: Swimming Pools (19 Sep 2024)

Heather Humphreys: It is my understanding that under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 2005, every employer is currently required to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that individuals at the place of work, including non employees, are not exposed to risks to their safety, health or welfare. Furthermore, it should be noted that the employment of lifeguards for pools in hotels and other...