Results 121-140 of 14,473 for speaker:Dara Calleary

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...

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

Dara Calleary: My Department has a staffing complement of approximately 7,300 both permanent and temporary staff who deliver services through a nationwide network of offices, with a very high level of public engagement, both through front office services (via Intreo offices, Public offices and Branch offices) and by phone through a number of contact centres. The table below shows the number of incidents...

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

Dara Calleary: The Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025 contains a commitment to "Consider and prepare a report for Government on the potential application of the benchmarking approach to other welfare payments". The roadmap also includes a commitment to develop a benchmarking approach for use in adjusting the value of State pension payments. It is worth noting that indexing weekly social protection...

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

Dara Calleary: Domiciliary Care Allowance (DCA) is an allowance payable in respect of a child aged under 16 who has a severe disability requiring continual or continuous care and attention substantially in excess of the care and attention normally required by a child of the same age and where the level of the child's disability is such that the child is likely to require that level of additional care and...

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

Dara Calleary: My Department has a commitment to an annual level of control reviews and operates an ongoing continuous schedule of control and review activity for those in receipt of a pension. The objective is to ensure that customers on a pension, regardless of age, continue to receive their correct rate of payment over the lifetime of their claim. On review, claimants on a means tested payment or...

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

Dara Calleary: The Social Welfare Appeals Office is an Office of the Department of Social Protection which is responsible for determining appeals against decisions in relation to social welfare entitlements. Appeals Officers are independent in their decision making functions. As of the 31st of March 2025, the current processing times for appeals is 20.9 weeks. The Appeals Office current has 18,934...

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

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government has committed to protect core welfare rates while ensuring that available resources are targeted at vulnerable groups. As referenced by the Deputy, the Programme for Government includes a commitment to examine key ancillary benefits such as the fuel allowance, household benefits package and living alone allowance to support vulnerable groups. This is in fact...

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

Dara Calleary: Following my announcement on the 11 April 2025, there are 2,850 primary schools now participating in the Hot School Meals Programme for the current academic school year. As announced in Budget 2025, Hot School Meals will be extended to all remaining primary schools in 2025 meaning that there will be 3,200 eligible schools in respect of 550,000 children from September 2025. The total...

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 Rates (1 May 2025)

Dara Calleary: As Minister for Social Protection, I am fully committed to making the case for a fair budget that protects the people most in need in our society - particularly families on low incomes and those people, including pensioners and carers who are dependent on social welfare payments.As part of Budget 2025, a €2.6 billion Social Protection package was secured. This was, for the third year...

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

Dara Calleary: My Department provides a range of employment supports to people with disabilities. My Department launched the Work and Access scheme in July 2024. This new scheme offers seven supports to help reduce and remove barriers in the workplace for people with a disability. Grants are available for communication supports, workplace adaptations and training. Supports are available for both the...

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

Dara Calleary: Jobseeker's Pay-Related Benefit is a new social insurance income support which has replaced the Jobseeker's Benefit scheme for people who are fully unemployed and whose first day of unemployment is on or after 31 March 2025. Pay-Related Benefit means that the rate of income support is directly linked to previous earnings subject to a maximum payment amount. Our bilateral agreement with...

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

Dara Calleary: The Programme for Government: Securing Ireland’s Future commits to reform the Disability Allowance Payment and remove anomalies in the current means test; there is no commitment to remove the means test. Over the last four budgets the Government have progressively improved payment rates and income disregards for disabled people. The weekly payment rates for Disability Allowance...