Results 101-120 of 14,473 for speaker:Dara Calleary

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

Dara Calleary: I am very pleased to report that the new Jobseeker's Pay-Related Benefit was introduced a month ago (31st March). This is a payment that will help people who lose a job to adjust to the income shock that this often entails. Instead of paying a single flat rate to all jobseekers as was the case up to this, Pay-Related Benefit means that the rate of income support is directly linked to...

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 not only to address the risk of food poverty among vulnerable children but to support all children in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. Importantly, as the meals are provided to all children in a school children from poorer backgrounds are not stigmatised by being singled...

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

Dara Calleary: The Government is keenly aware of child poverty issues and is also conscious of the impact of cost-of-living increases in 2023 and 2024. The Government's concern to address these issues are reflected both in the creation of a child poverty unit in the Department of An Taoiseach and in the development of recent Budget packages. The budget packages, which were the largest in the...

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

Dara Calleary: Disability Allowance is my Department's primary disability related social assistance scheme. Disability Allowance is a means-tested payment for people with a disability who are aged between 16 and 66. In order to be eligible, the disability must be expected to last for at least one year. The allowance is also subject to a means test, a medical assessment and a habitual residency...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: There is a already a nutritional standard in place for the School Meals Programme since. A specific standard was set for School Meals under the Nutritional Standards for School Meals and Nutritional Standards for Hot School Meals. A technical Nutrition Sub Group comprised of Dietitians from the following organisations was involved in developing these standards: The Irish Nutrition and...

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

Dara Calleary: I was very pleased to launch the new Jobseekers Pay-Related benefit payment at the beginning of this month and I wish to compliment the Department's staff in their development and implementation of this new scheme on time and within budget. It is a new scheme that will help people who lose their employment to cope with the sudden income-shock that always accompanies such a loss, and in...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Code (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...

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

Dara Calleary: The Wage Subsidy Scheme is a key disability employment support. It aims to encourage employers to offer substantial and sustainable employment to people with disabilities through a subsidy. Last year, my Department published a review of the Wage Subsidy Scheme.In April 2024, based on the findings in the review, my Department reduced the minimum required hours for the scheme from 21 hours...

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...