Results 13,161-13,180 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Back to Education Allowance Payments (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The back to education programme (BTEA) provides a wide range of second chance education opportunities for unemployed people, lone parents and people with disabilities. The programme includes an education, training and development (ET&D) option. This option is used to support jobseekers to undertake short-duration, evening, and ad-hoc courses without interruption of the...

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

Joan Burton: Thanks in large part to the Government’s Pathways to Work strategy, many of the elements identified at an EU level as being core to a Youth Guarantee are already in place in Ireland. These include personalised delivery of services at public employment offices with targeted recruitment subsidies, internships, places on training and employment programmes and free further education...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Respite Care Grant Payments (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The respite care grant (RCG) is an annual non means-tested payment made to all carers who provide full time care and attention to others and forms part of a range of carer supports provided by the Department. Over €822 million is being provided next year for these direct supports, up nearly €17 million from that provided for in 2014. In 2014, more than 80,000 carers benefited...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Work Placement Initiative (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: Tús, the community work placement initiative introduced during 2011, was established to provide short-term, quality work opportunities for those who are unemployed for more than a year. As of 24thOctober, nearly 6.700 jobseekers are engaged on Tús. Since its commencement, over 22,000 have participated on this initiative. A key feature of Tús is that selection is undertaken...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Respite Care Grant Payments (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The Respite Care Grant (RCG) forms part of a range of illness, disability and carer supports provided by the Department to people with disabilities and those who care for them. The RCG is paid automatically to people in receipt of Carer’s Allowance, Carer’s Benefit, Domiciliary Care Allowance or Prescribed Relative’s Allowance. Other people who are not in receipt of a...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: From 2015 a new payment, the water support, will be paid to all those who are eligible for household benefits or fuel allowance. The payment will be €25 paid every three months to approximately 650,000 households at an annual cost of €66 million. The payment will be made to all those currently in receipt of either household benefits or fuel allowance. Customers will not need...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments Administration (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: Where a carer’s caring role ends on the death of the care recipient, payment of the Carer's Benefit or Carer's Allowance continues to be made for a period of 6 weeks after the date of death of the care recipient to allow the carer some time to move to an appropriate income support or return to work. Information on the type of social welfare income support most appropriate to the...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Defined Benefit Pension Schemes (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The Pensions Act provides for the preservation of benefits for members of occupational pension schemes who leave employment before their normal pensionable age for any reason, other than death, provided they satisfy certain qualifying conditions. The preserved benefit is a proportion of the long service benefit to which the member would have been entitled if he or she had remained in...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Rent Supplement Scheme Administration (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: There are approximately 73,500 rent supplement recipients for which the Government has provided over €344 million for 2014. I am acutely aware of the difficulties people are experiencing in maintaining affordable rented accommodation in areas of high demand, including areas in Kildare and Dublin, in the current market. However, raising rent limits may not be the solution to the...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Anti-Poverty Strategy (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The Social Inclusion Monitor, the official report on progress on poverty using national and EU indicators, reports that the rate of consistent poverty in 2012 was 7.7 per cent, equivalent to 353,000 people. The average rate of consistent poverty since the economic crisis was 6.6 per cent (years 2009-2012), as compared with an average rate of 5.7 per cent in the years preceding the crisis...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Community Employment Schemes Data (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The Budget of 2012 announced the disqualification from certain welfare payments for welfare recipients while participating on Community Employment (CE). Up until 16thJanuary 2012, certain social welfare payments could be retained in part or in full when participating on CE. The CE personal rate of €208.00 was applicable to these participants (as any dependants were covered under the...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Rural Social Scheme Eligibility (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The rural social scheme (RSS) provides income support for farmers and those engaged in fishing who have an entitlement to specified social welfare payments. Participants are engaged for 19½ hours per week to provide certain services of benefit to rural communities. The scheme currently provides work opportunities for around 2,600 participants and 130 supervisory staff. The funds...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: JobPath Initiative (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: JobPath is the Government’s new labour market activation service aimed specifically at the long-term unemployed and those most distant from the labour market, with the primary objective of assisting such persons to gain sustained employment. JobPath will augment and complement both the Department’s own employment services as well as the services contracted under existing...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Pension Provisions (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: Pension schemes in Ireland are generally set up under a trust. The management of the scheme is a matter for the employer and the trustees of the pension scheme. The obligation on the sponsoring employer will be set out in the trust deed and scheme rules. The trustees of the scheme are required to act in the best interest of all scheme members. The Pensions Act provides a framework for the...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Rent Supplement Scheme Payments (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: There are approximately 73,500 rent supplement recipients for which the Government has provided over €344 million for 2014. I am acutely aware of the difficulties people are experiencing in maintaining affordable rented accommodation in areas of high demand, including those in receipt of rent supplement, in the current market. However, raising rent limits may not be the solution to...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: National Internship Scheme Administration (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The aim of the JobBridge scheme is to assist in breaking the vicious cycle whereby jobseekers are unable to get a job without experience, either as new entrants to the labour market following education or training, or as unemployed workers wishing to learn new skills. At any one time, JobBridge will provide up to 8,500 work experience placements for jobseekers, in organisations in the...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Jobseeker Schemes Eligibility (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The jobseeker’s schemes provide income support for people who are seeking their first job or have lost work and are seeking alternative employment. A fundamental qualifying condition for both the jobseeker’s benefit and jobseeker’s allowance is that a person must be available for full-time work. Where a person is employed for up to three days in a week, they may claim...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Child Poverty (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The Social Inclusion Monitor, the official report on progress on poverty using national and EU indicators, reports that the rate of consistent poverty for children in 2012 was 9.9 per cent or 115,000 children. This compares with an average of 8.7 per cent for the years preceding the crisis (2005-2008) or 91,000 children. Using the at-risk-of-poverty measure, 18.8 per cent of children were in...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Services for People with Disabilities (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: The Government recognises the importance of increasing participation in employment for persons with a disability and is committed to removing any barriers which prevent those persons with disabilities from participating in activation programmes and employment. A wide range of activation programmes are available to persons with disabilities including access to SOLAS training courses, community...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (4 Nov 2014)

Joan Burton: All existing welfare payments have been fully maintained for 2015 – there will be no reductions. In addition, I announced on Budget Day a number of initiatives costing €198 million with four key objectives. These are: - Assisting long-term unemployed families to return to work by providing continued financial support; - Helping all families in the State with the cost of...