Results 9,681-9,700 of 12,033 for speaker:Regina Doherty

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits Eligibility (21 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: The jobseeker's benefit (JB) and jobseeker’s allowance (JA) schemes provide income support for people who have lost work and who are available for and genuinely seeking full-time employment. Jobseeker’s allowance is a means tested social assistance payment whereas jobseeker’s benefit is a contribution based insurance scheme. The 2017 Estimates for the Department...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Insurance Data (21 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: It is not possible for my Department to provide an estimate for the abolition of employer’s PRSI for new employees on the basis outlined by the Deputy, because of the difficulty in projecting the nature and duration of new jobs taken up by younger jobseekers. My department does, however, already provide financial support to businesses engaging additional employees through the...

Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill 2017: Second Stage (Resumed) (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: I would love €58 billion. It would be deadly.

Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill 2017: Second Stage (Resumed) (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: I would be the most popular social welfare Minister ever.

Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill 2017: Second Stage (Resumed) (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: The Department's budget is €19 billion.

Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill 2017: Second Stage (Resumed) (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: Sorry for interrupting but the social protection budget is just over €19 billion.

Other Questions: Social Insurance (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: I agree with Deputy Penrose. Both of us are on the same wavelength, except in one regard. We are not behind profile. We are €278 million ahead of profile. That is why it does not make any sense to me. My gut is telling me that there are people out there who are in vulnerable positions who do not know that we are here to help. I will make sure that they know while at the same time...

Other Questions: Social Insurance (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: I will make two points to Deputy Penrose. The report will be ready for publication shortly. I had one concern. Some 23 submissions were received but only four came from self-employed people. It is a bit of a misnomer when one has public consultation on self-employment that 19 of the 23 submissions are from employers. I was a bit miffed by that. I am considering seeking submissions...

Other Questions: Social Insurance (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: With the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's indulgence, I would say that anybody who finds himself or herself in the position Deputy Penrose described can retrospectively go back to Scope and get his or her social insurance contributions reinstated. That is the merit of Scope.

Other Questions: Public Services Card (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: The purpose of the public services card, PSC, is to enable individuals to gain access to public services more efficiently and less duplication of having to give the same information to a variety of different public bodies, while at the same time preserving their privacy to the maximum extent possible. The purpose of SAFE 2 registration, as underpinned by legislation, is to verify the...

Other Questions: Public Services Card (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: The Deputy is absolutely right, but it is not a change. I repeat that the public services card is to do nothing other than access public services. The reason the Deputy gets authenticated the first and only time is that if he goes through the SAFE process and he proves he is John Curran, he will never have to do it again. The Deputy will have proven with the Department of Employment...

Other Questions: Jobseeker's Payments (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: It is categorically not discriminatory. If it was, somebody would have already taken and tested a case against it, and that has not happened. It has not because there is a choice for young people under 25 years of age so that if they need €198 to live on, they will move to one of the other schemes that is available to them to move to at any time during it. There are additional lower...

Other Questions: Jobseeker's Payments (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: The reason that there is a lower payment here is to try to be ambitious for our younger people. It is to try not to box them off into what the Deputy would wish to box them into. It is to try to encourage them to do something other than staying at home and collecting a payment of €102 a week. Let them become a carer. Let them go back to school and undertake further education. Let...

Other Questions: Jobseeker's Payments (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: Please do not put words in my mouth.

Other Questions: Jobseeker's Payments (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: I never ever said it was helping. Let me be very clear. There is nothing shy about me and I am well able to speak for myself. I would very much appreciate if the Deputy did not put words in my mouth or pertain to tell people that he knows what I am thinking or saying. I am very well able to say it myself.

Other Questions: Jobseeker's Payments (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: The purpose of this lower payment is to encourage younger people to provide themselves with opportunities such as back to education, to provide community employment schemes or any of the activation measures that are available to support, assist and help younger people into employment and into the workforce. Let me point out something to the Deputy. It is working. One of the largest drops...

Other Questions: Social Insurance (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: I have taken a big interest in this in the last couple of months. I was of the view that the Deputy has just described but I was very much surprised by the results that I got back. I will outline an except and then I will discuss it with the Deputy. In 2000, a national training fund levy of 0.7% was introduced by the then Fianna Fáil Government and it was incorporated into the...

Other Questions: Social Welfare Benefits Reviews (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: I have only become aware from the past couple of months that the targets we set down in the Department for all of the services regarding the payments we facilitate are fairly ambitious. An appeal should take no longer than 12 weeks although clearly that is not always the reality. I am not apportioning blame to either the Department or to people but there is a sense, which I have...

Other Questions: Social Welfare Benefits Reviews (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: I take the Deputy's point on board. I do not need to conduct a review because we carry out one on a monthly basis. Every month, at a management meeting, we ask what the turnaround times for payments and appeals are. There are difficulties. The Deputy is probably aware that domiciliary care allowance applications have increased quite dramatically over the past couple of months so,...

Other Questions: Jobseeker's Payments (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: I propose to take Questions Nos. 41 and 46 together. Lower weekly rates for younger jobseeker's allowance recipients were first introduced in 2009 and extended in subsequent budgets. These measures were introduced to protect young people from welfare dependency. In many cases, they have had a very positive outcome because our youth unemployment figures have gone from here to here, which is...