Results 1,001-1,020 of 15,365 for speaker:Dara Calleary

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Support Services (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department provides a range of financial supports for people transitioning to employment, including part-time working. The Intreo teams in Tullamore and Edenderry are available to assist customers in relation to the supports appropriate to their particular circumstances. Key supports include the following: A person can work up to three days and continue to receive a partial...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Code (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government commits to examining the introduction of a Pay Related Carer’s Benefit for individuals who have to give up work suddenly in order to provide full-time care to a loved one. In terms of roll-out of Pay-Related Benefits, the Programme for Government also contains a commitment to introduce a Pay-Related Parent’s Benefit. The new Jobseeker's Pay-Related...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (1 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. Following my announcement on the 11 April 2025, there are 2,850 primary schools now participating in...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Irish social welfare system operates on a principle of "one person, one payment". People typically receive the highest payment they qualify for. However, the Half-rate Carer’s Allowance payment is one of a limited number of exceptions to this. This allows individuals receiving certain payments, such as the State Pension, who are providing full-time care and attention to retain...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Schemes (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The criteria for Fuel Allowance are framed in order to direct the limited resources available to my Department in as targeted a manner as possible. This ensures that the Fuel Allowance payment goes to those who are more vulnerable to fuel poverty. While my Department's schemes are reviewed on an ongoing basis, any decision to remove the means test criterion for Fuel Allowance would...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Humanitarian Assistance Scheme, administered by my department through the local Community Welfare Services (CWS) was activated on Thursday 23 January 2025 to assist householders affected across the country by Storm Éowyn. The Humanitarian Assistance Scheme (HAS) is operated in 3 stages. Stage 1 of the scheme is to address hardship in the immediate aftermath of a severe...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Code (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: Domiciliary Care Allowance is a monthly non-means tested payment to a parent or guardian for a child aged up to 16 who has a severe disability. The child must require care and attention substantially over and above that required by other children their age.Domiciliary Care Allowance ceases to be payable when a child reaches 16 years of age. The young person can then apply for Disability...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Funding (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department published a review of the Reasonable Accommodation Fund and Disability Awareness Support Scheme in August 2023. This report gave nine recommendations to merge the two schemes into a single, flexible scheme and to expand and improve the supports offered under the new scheme. In July 2024, the new Work and Access scheme was launched. Work and Access offers seven supports to...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Community Employment Schemes (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The objective of Community Employment (CE) is to enhance the employability of disadvantaged and long-term unemployed persons by providing work experience and training opportunities for them within their local communities on a temporary fixed term basis. In addition to providing eligible people with valuable occupational experience and training as a stepping-stone to employment in the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (1 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.Funding under the School Meals Programme can be provided for breakfast, snack, cold lunch, dinner, hot...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: I propose to take Questions Nos. 117, 120, 142 and 143 together. The Government is very aware of the key role that family carers play in Irish society and the challenges they face and is fully committed to supporting carers in that role. The Programme for Government has set out a specific timeline which commits to significantly increasing the income disregards for Carer’s Allowance...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Poverty Data (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The latest SILC statistics published last month show that consistent poverty, which is the most relevant indicator for setting the child poverty target, increased from 4.8% in 2023 to 8.5% in 2024 for the 0-17 age group. 15.3% of children are at risk of poverty and with 8.5% living in consistent poverty, this represents an estimated number of 102,977 children. While these figures are...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Support Services (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Irish labour market continues to perform well. According to data made available by the CSO, unemployment remains low, and has been consistently below 5 per cent since January 2022. This is the conventional definition of full employment standing at 4 per cent in March. Additionally, the quarterly Labour Force Survey records a long-term unemployment rate of 1 percent cent as of Q4, 2024...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Rural Schemes (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Rural Social Scheme (RSS) is an income support scheme that provides part-time employment opportunities for farmers and fishers in receipt of specified social welfare payments, and who are underemployed in their primary occupation. The valuable work undertaken by participants draws on their existing skills which may be further developed and shared throughout their participation. The RSS...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Schemes (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The purpose of the Humanitarian Assistance Scheme is to provide financial support to people whose homes are damaged and who are not able to meet costs for essential needs, household items and, in some instances, structural repair. This includes emergency support payments, under Stage 1 of the scheme, to households in the immediate aftermath of severe weather events, for items such as...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Schemes (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Workplace Equipment Adaptation Grant was one of four grants available under the Reasonable Accommodation Fund. The table sets out expenditure on that grant over the period 2020-2024. 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 Workplace Equipment Adaptation Grant 41 29 33 26 30 My Department...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Schemes (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: Under the Programme for Government, the Government has committed to review the minimum hours requirement under the Wage Subsidy Scheme and to examine an increase to the payment rate. The Wage Subsidy Scheme supports employers to hire people with disabilities through a subsidy. As part of Budget 2022, my Department increased the base subsidy rate from €5.30 to €6.30 per hour....

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department provides State Pension payments through the State Pension (Contributory), which is a contributory based payment based on a person's social insurance record and the State Pension (Non-Contributory) which is means-tested social assistance payment. To receive either a contributory or social assistance payment a person must qualify for that payment in their own right. The State...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Government acknowledges the crucial role that carers play in Irish society and is fully committed to supporting carers in that role. Carer's Allowance 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...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Government recognises the additional costs associated with having a disability and is committed to improving outcomes for disabled people. That is why in the last three Budgets we brought forward an extensive range of cost of living measures to support people with disabilities and their families, including lump sum payments, bonus payments and increases to the maximum personal rate of...