Results 1,041-1,060 of 20,682 for speaker:Mary Hanafin

Employment Support Services. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: I hope we can arrive at a situation where we can get the information for people and that the dispute can be resolved to everybody's satisfaction. However, I understand it is difficult for Deputies who are trying to get information on behalf of their constituents.

Employment Support Services. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The important thing is to ensure that payments are not affected. Some 1,200,000 payments are made every week by the Department and although we have issues concerning telephones not being answered or offices not being covered, claims are being taken and processed and money is being paid. That is the crucial element at this stage. However, I appreciate the frustration Deputies feel. ...

Employment Support Services. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: -----were to come along and say that such applicants know there are no jobs. In those circumstances employers should not give them a letter to satisfy their social welfare needs if they know it is not the result of any genuine effort to find work. The reality is there are not as many jobs available as there were but there is an obligation on the offices to seek the information. I shall...

Employment Support Services. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The Deputy is right. In summer 2008 we brought together all the facilitators and organised a seminar for them on the education training opportunities and new initiatives that were available to ensure they had the top information to hand. In May 2009 we sent out information leaflets and documents to the under 25 age group advising them of education opportunities they might care to take up....

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The family income supplement, FIS, payment provides income support for employees on low earnings with children. The manner in which the value of the payment is calculated is designed to preserve the financial incentive to take up or remain in employment in circumstances where the employee might be only marginally better off on social welfare payments. Fundamental to the design of the FIS...

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: With regard to the self-employed, the scheme is designed to help people who are employees. There are other ways of supporting people on low income who are self-employed by bridging a gap between what they can show they are earning and what they would get on jobseeker's allowance. When one considers the number of people currently benefiting from the scheme, which is growing all the time and...

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The changes that came about in the family income supplement were designed to support any loss people might experience in regard to the child benefit but I appreciate there was no compensation factor for the early child care supplement. The Department is undertaking a broader review at present of child income support, the value for money review in that area and policy in that area, so it will...

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: What we need to do is to ensure that those people who qualify would benefit from it.

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The Government believes that the current arrangements, whereby a lone parent can receive the one-parent family payment until their child is 22 without any requirement for them to engage in employment, education or training, are not in the best interests of the recipient, their children or society. Despite improvements made to the one-parent family payment over the years, a large proportion...

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: I too have met with the various representative groups and found they had a valuable contribution to make to the debate. Many of them undertake independent research which is of particular value. I met some of the groups only last week and will meet a group of lone parents next week in Tallaght, including some very young parents, to ascertain their views. The original documents that were...

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: We are not talking about a substantial number of people at any one time, with approximately 2,000 people coming off the payment in a given year. If we start working with those people three or four years in advance, they will be able to benefit-----

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: If we are talking about a cut-off point of the child reaching 13 years of age, we will have an opportunity, three or four years in advance, to ensure parents are benefiting from education and training. There must be a sea change in cultural attitudes so that lone parents, particularly young parents, are not looking forward to a 22-year time span during which they are not obliged to take any...

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: In regard to child care provision, there are 1,000 community-based crèches throughout the State in which 30,000 children are being cared for. Lone parents receive good rates in those facilities and are afforded priority of access.

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: We have had discussions about ensuring that lone parents who go into employment will continue to access those benefits. The Department is also talking to FÁS about ensuring that the skills courses lone parents may need to avail of do not begin at 8.30 a.m. which would automatically exclude many of them.

Rental Accommodation Scheme. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The purpose of the rent supplement scheme is to provide short-term support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation costs and who do not have accommodation available to them from any other source. The overall aim is to provide short-term assistance, not to act as an alternative to the other social housing schemes...

Rental Accommodation Scheme. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: One of the blockages is that many of these people are not the responsibility of the local authority. If the authority houses them, it does not necessarily mean it is reducing its own list. They might be reducing the social welfare lists but they are not reducing the housing list, and in my view, that is one of the blockages. For this reason, last year, we insisted on people having a full...

Rental Accommodation Scheme. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: A total of €500 million for 93,000 people is a good security for those people and it is keeping them in rented accommodation. It also acknowledges the difficulties experienced by those people. What I do not like to see is the scheme being used as a long-term arrangement because it was never designed to be that kind of scheme. Some of the changes we introduced will help to overcome those...

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The mortgage interest supplement scheme provides support for people who have difficulty meeting their mortgage repayments and whose means are insufficient to meet their needs. The scheme provides a short-term income safety net within the overall social welfare system to ensure that people do not suffer hardship due to loss of employment. A supplement in respect of mortgage interest only may...

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: My officials.

Social Welfare Code. (23 Feb 2010)

Mary Hanafin: I am expecting the report in April. I have met with some of the members of the group to discuss the issues I wanted to ensure were being examined, for example, the cap on employment. They advised me they expect to produce the report in April.