Results 14,181-14,200 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: National Internship Scheme Administration (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: I will take the last question first. The reason is that as the Deputy is aware, very young people who have no engagement in the labour market get a reduced rate of payment. If, for instance, they undertake a JobBridge experience, in some cases young people who have left school early may not even have finished the junior certificate or possibly have not completed the leaving certificate. In...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Free Travel Scheme Review (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: I have heard some of the suggestions that the Deputy has made, such as annual charges and other restrictions, which have appeared from time to time and have been suggested by people. The Deputy has suggested them here himself.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Free Travel Scheme Review (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: Let us say the Deputy has been raising the spectre of charges and restrictions. There are no proposals in that regard. The scheme is almost 50 years old. It has been remarkably robust since its inception in 1967. As I explained in my reply, there are some problems with the issue of identification and a small level of misuse of the scheme. We have now introduced 197,000 of the new public...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Free Travel Scheme Review (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: From time to time some operators pull out of the scheme while other operators join it. I am aware there are cost issues for some of the operators. We are anxious to maintain those routes. As the Deputy will be aware, a number of rural transport initiatives are supported not just by my Department, but particularly by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. They can make a very...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Free Travel Scheme Review (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: I thank the Deputy for his congratulations to me and the Minister of State, Deputy Humphreys. The free travel scheme is currently available to all people living in the State aged 66 years or over, and to persons under 66 who are in receipt of certain disability-type payments or carer’s allowance. When companion and spousal passes are taken into account, more than 1.2 million people...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Job Creation (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: Official figures from the CSO show that both long-term and youth unemployment are actually falling, and not rising as suggested by the Deputy. Since the lowest point of the jobs crisis, the unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of over 15% to 11.6% at present. The latest QNHS figures show that the number of long-term unemployed has fallen from 204,000 (9.5%) in the first quarter of 2012...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Social Welfare Code Reform (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: Self-employed persons pay PRSI at the Class S rate of 4%. This entitles them to access valuable long-term benefits including the State pension (contributory), widow’s, widower’s and surviving civil partner’s contributory pension and maternity benefit. The self-employed with insufficient means can also access social assistance payments such as jobseekers allowance and...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Social Welfare Fraud Investigations (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: The new Compliance and Anti-Fraud Strategy 2014 – 2018,which I published in April this year, sets out the strategic approach to tackling fraud and abuse over the next 5 years. It also provides strong assurances to taxpayers - and society generally - that the system of control is robust and effective. The Strategy builds on the approaches that we have been successfully rolling out over...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Departmental Programmes (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: Given the scale of unemployment, the key objective of activation policy and labour market initiatives has been to offer assistance to those most in need of support in securing work and achieving financial self-sufficiency. Accordingly the employment services and schemes provided by the Department are focused in the first instance on the cohort of people who are unemployed and in receipt of a...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Rent Supplement Scheme Administration (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: The purpose of rent supplement is to provide short-term income support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation. There are approximately 76,000 rent supplement recipients for which the Government has provided over €344 million for 2014. Prospective tenants, including those seeking to access rent supplement, particularly in urban areas, are finding it increasingly...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: National Internship Scheme Data (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: A rigorous monitoring system is in place to ensure that the JobBridge scheme is not abused. More than 6,600 on-site monitoring visits have been conducted in the 3 years since the JobBridge scheme was introduced. These on-site monitoring visits are to host organisations either chosen at random or visits arranged in response to concerns raised by interns or others. 97% of those visits found...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Rural Social Scheme Administration (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: As the Deputy is aware, the rural social scheme (RSS) provides income support for low income 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 Department has engaged 35 local development companies and Údarás na...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Social Welfare Code (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: The Household Budget facility, operated by An Post on behalf of the Department of Social Protection, provides customers with a facility to have their household utility bills and social rents deducted directly from their weekly social welfare payment. While some 33,000 housing authority tenants have availed of the facility in terms of social rents, the housing authorities were experiencing...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: One-Parent Family Payments (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: The one-parent family payment (OFP) scheme supports 74,426 recipients at an estimated cost of €863 million in 2014.The reforms to the OFP scheme are reducing on a phased basis, the maximum age limit of the youngest child at which an OFP recipient’s payment ceases to 7 years from 3 July 2014 for new entrants and from 2015 for existing recipients. There are no plans to cancel or...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Youth Unemployment Measures (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: The cost of employment, training and education programmes for unemployed young people are funded, in the first instance, by the Irish Exchequer. However, it is expected that a number of the programmes included in Ireland’s Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan will meet European Social Fund eligibility criteria and will be included in the Youth Employment Initiative application for...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Rent Supplement Scheme Administration (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: The purpose of rent supplement is to provide short-term income support to eligible people living in private rented accommodation. There are approximately 76,000 rent supplement recipients for which the Government has provided over €344 million for 2014. Prospective tenants, including those seeking to access rent supplement, particularly in urban areas, are finding it increasingly...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: One-Parent Family Payment Eligibility (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: The one-parent family payment (OFP) scheme supports 74,426 recipients at an estimated cost of €863 million in 2014.The reforms to the OFP scheme are reducing on a phased basis, the maximum age limit of the youngest child at which an OFP recipient’s payment ceases to 7 years from 2014 for new entrants and from 2015 for existing recipients. On 3 July, 2014, 5,140 customers saw...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Back to Education Allowance Eligibility (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: The back to education (BTEA) programme is a second-chance education scheme for jobseekers, lone parents and people with disabilities who are in receipt of certain social welfare payments. Under the BTEA, income support is provided to allow jobseekers undertake a second-level or third-level course to improve their education and skills. In mid-May, I announced a number of enhancements to the...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Pension Provisions (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: As the Deputy is aware, the Social Welfare and Pensions (No.2) Act amended the Pensions Act to change the manner in which the assets of a pension scheme are distributed in the event of the wind up of a scheme. It also broadened the options available to the trustees of a pension scheme when considering a restructure of scheme benefits under section 50 of the Pensions Act. These changes...

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Free Travel Scheme Review (15 Jul 2014)

Joan Burton: The free travel scheme is currently available to all people living in the State aged 66 years or over, to carers and to customers under 66 who are in receipt of certain disability type payments. There are currently over 790,000 customers in receipt of free travel at an annual cost of €77 million. The freeze on funding for the scheme introduced by the previous government in 2010 as...