Results 81-100 of 28,255 for speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: The reason for that is that the Social Insurance Fund has done better than anticipated and, therefore, the Department was able to pay €600 million.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: The Department was able to pay that out of the Social Insurance Fund and still have an increasing surplus at the end of the year in that. That is now a €17 million rainy day fund. If unemployment was to go up, those finances are there in the Social Insurance Fund.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: That is in total.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I know that.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: The Department has a contingency fund effectively if the demographics go wrong or if unemployment increases and as pension numbers increase. The Department is on the right side of this. How does that €7 billion surplus, or reserve fund, compare to the last set of forecasts which were better than the previous set? Did the Department expect to have €7 billion at the end of this...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: It was 2020.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: The key to the out-performance is not that there are fewer pensioners drawing a pension or fewer people drawing social insurance benefit; it is that employment has increased and it could not have increased if it were not for a high number of people coming into the country and working productively in the economy. It is a simple mathematical figure. All of these people, whether they be native...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: And to keep employment growing. When I was going to school, and that was a long time ago, I remember the science teachers and so on telling us that everything would be automated and we would be free every day. It would basically be all sunshine and we need not work because machines would do everything. I do not know how many people would have been employed in the economy in the sixties. We...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: This is the point I am coming to. The chance of not giving the Christmas bonus is nil in reality. Therefore, why is it not included in the Estimate and be done with it? Why not just institutionalise it after all of these years? There is an old saying in the Irish language, “Ná dein nós agus ná bris nós”, which translated into English means do not make a...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: It is good practice.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I know.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Yes, I agree.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: The 1930s.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: We are on the right track.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Absolutely.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I have just one comment, just in case anybody misunderstood what I said. I welcome the one-off payments but the more they are paid, the more necessary it is to have a structure. I have said time and again regarding the Christmas bonuses that their structure should be such that nobody will be able to say in a future year that, because the Exchequer is a bit short, they will not be paid....

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: These are the quick fire questions now.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: I noticed that if it had not been for the one-off payment and the fuel allowance the Minister's underlying Estimate was €2 million more generous than required. That is significant because for the second year in a row the Minister has been bang on. An amount of €2 million is not much in the greater scheme of the maths being done here. It shows relaxing the means test on the...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: There is no means test on that.

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Supplementary) (16 Oct 2024)

Éamon Ó Cuív: Thus, on the face of it, it looks like if we opened it up with no means test, we would have 6,700 more. How many are getting the carer's allowance?