Results 13,141-13,160 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Water Charges Administration (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: If the Deputy reads the analysis on people being better or less well off, he will find it has been my concern in the budget to ensure that 80,000 people are lifted out of the universal social charge. The two lower rates of the universal social charge, which mostly apply to the people on lower pay to whom the Deputy referred, have been reduced by half a percentage point each. That of course...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Water Charges Administration (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: That has been widely welcomed.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Water Charges Administration (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The Deputy's suggestion is that somehow or other the payments to people in the budget are not significant.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Water Charges Administration (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: I understand the question relates to the Christmas bonus.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Water Charges Administration (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: May I deal with the first part of the question, which relates to the Christmas bonus?

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Water Charges Administration (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The Christmas bonus, which was paid each year in the period from 1980 to 2008, inclusive, was abolished by the previous Fianna Fáil-led Government in 2009. I am pleased that I am partially restoring the bonus this year, with the result that a bonus of 25% will be paid in early December to more than 1.1 million recipients, including all long-term welfare recipients, such as pensioners,...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Personal Public Service Numbers (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: My view with regard to Irish Water, and I said this a number of weeks ago and before other people commented, is that the undertaking is of such a significant size that it will take a considerable number of years to roll out. I said that in the Dáil more than a couple of weeks ago. That is the first point. Second, PPS numbers are already used in communications with utility companies...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Personal Public Service Numbers (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The PPS number has been in existence for a long time. It is one of the factors that enables much better delivery of public services among the wide range of services I mentioned earlier. It is governed by extremely tight data protection regulations and it is a criminal offence to misuse PPS numbers. I appreciate the concerns people have expressed on this issue but in the case of Irish Water...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Personal Public Service Numbers (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: Social welfare legislation specifies that the PPS number can only be used by specified bodies and agents acting on their behalf and only for the purposes of public service transactions. Provision is also made for sharing a person's PPS number between specified bodies. The PPS number is a unique identifier. It was introduced in 1998 and is used to provide access to an important range of...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Invalidity Pension Appeals (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The new system will identify people who can be transferred based on information the Department has on file. This information will include a description of the illness or disability and the period for which it may be endured. Improved information technology, IT, has made this possible. When I became Minister, I inherited an enormous backlog in this area and there were many discussions in...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Invalidity Pension Appeals (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: In 2013 there were 9,640 applications, while this year 6,933 applications were received by the end of September. Some 9,494 claims were awarded in 2013, while this year 5,373 claims were awarded by the end of September. Obviously, they are not the same people because there is a considerable period during which claims are processed. With the new information technology, I can put it...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Invalidity Pension Appeals (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: One of the main reasons there is a high disallowance rate of invalidity pension applications is that, in common with all the illness and disability schemes, claimants and their doctors often do not provide full and comprehensive details of their condition or disability until they receive notification of a disallowance. In this regard, it should be noted that invalidity pension is a long-term...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: One-Parent Family Payments (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: With regard to one-parent families, the critical thing is to provide a supportive framework for parents to get back to work in the way that happens in the North when the youngest child is well settled in school. That is why the age of seven years was selected. It is what applies in the North and in the UK. In Scandinavian countries, the age is lower. If the Deputy does not have a problem...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: One-Parent Family Payments (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: In the budget, there have been modest but significant tax reductions, USC reductions and increases in social welfare payments as well as significant increases in areas like health and education. The effect is that everyone, including one-parent families, will share in the dividend. I have outlined what one-parent families will share. It is really important that as a society we make...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Unemployment Levels (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: I do not agree at all. A number of popular initiatives have been launched during the Government's period in office. For instance, Momentum is specifically targeted at the long-term unemployed. It means that when people take a course - most courses are up to an academic year in length - they will continue to receive their social welfare payments. At any one there are well over 20,000...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: One-Parent Family Payments (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The one parent family payment, OFP, scheme supports 71,095 recipients at an estimated cost of €865 million in 2014. The reforms to the scheme to reduce the maximum age limit of the youngest child for receipt of the payment to seven years of age from July 2015 and to reduce the scheme’s income disregard to €60 per week by January 2016 are provided for in the Social...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Unemployment Levels (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The most recent Central Statistics Office, CSO, data shows that the long-term unemployment rate has fallen from 9.3% two years ago to 6.8% in the second quarter of this year, a very significant reduction. There were 146,500 persons long-term unemployed in the second quarter, down from the comparable figure of 200,000 two years earlier. A key aim of our Pathways to Work strategy is to ensure...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Unemployment Levels (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: Comments have been made on our benefits system by various international bodies. Several of them - I do not know whether the Deputy agrees with them - have indicated they would like to see reductions in the rate of payment to people on long-term unemployment benefits. I believe the way to go is not to reduce the weekly rates, as Fianna Fáil did when it was last in power by reducing the...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Free Travel Scheme Administration (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The free travel scheme provides free travel on the main public and private transport services for approximately 800,000 people, elderly, disabled and carers, at an annual cost of €77 million. Funding for the free travel scheme was capped by the previous Government in the National Recovery Plan 2011-2014. To implement this cap on funding during a time in which passenger numbers have...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Youth Unemployment Data (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: Continuing progress is being made in addressing both the rate and duration of youth unemployment. CSO data shows that the youth unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2014 had fallen from 33% in mid-2012 to 27% or 25% when seasonally-adjusted. The number of young people unemployed has fallen by 23,400 from 76,000 to 52,600 over the same period. There has also been an improvement in the...