Results 14,441-14,460 of 27,613 for speaker:Heather Humphreys

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Wage Subsidy Scheme (WSS) is targeted at private sector employers and is aimed at encouraging the employment of people with disabilities through the provision of financial incentives (a wage subsidy). The subsidy is delivered in three strands depending on the number of qualifying employees. In the case of one employee, the wage subsidy may be paid if the employee with a disability has a...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Department of Social Protection provides schemes specifically targeted at lone parents who have the main care and charge of the qualifying children, that is, they have morethan 50% of the custody, in addition to satisfying the other qualifying conditions such as the means test. These schemes are the One-Parent Family Payment, where the youngest child is aged under 7 years of age, and the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: Following the submission of further medical evidence by the person concerned, their case has been reviewed and they have been awarded disability allowance with effect from 28 April 2021. The first payment will be made on 7 July 2021. Arrears of payment due will issue as soon as possible once any necessary adjustment is calculated and applied in respect of any overlapping payments. I trust...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Fuel Allowance is a payment of €28.00 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €784 each year) from October to April, to over 372,000 low income households, at an estimated cost of €300 million in 2021. The purpose of this payment is to assist these households with their energy costs. The allowance represents a contribution towards the energy costs of a household. It is...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: In Budget 2020, a budget of €60,000 was provided to support the Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF) in carrying out a research project into funeral poverty in Ireland. This independent research by the IHF is to examine how bereavement affects people, particularly the economic impact of death. It seeks to trace the dynamics of bereavement in Ireland, identify immediate and longer-term...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The estimated full year cost of increasing each weekly social welfare payment by €1 is shown in the table below. Payment Personal €m Qualified Adult €m Total €m* Social Insurance Schemes State Pension (Contributory) € 22.0 € 3.0 ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: Disability Allowance (DA) is a means-tested payment for people with a specified disability who are aged between 16 and 66. The disability must be expected to last for at least one year and the allowance is subject to a medical assessment, a means test and a habitual residency test. The estimated annual expenditure on DA for 2021 is some €1.83 billion. The estimated cost of...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: Disability Allowance (DA) is a means-tested payment for people with a specified disability who are aged between 16 and 66. The disability must be expected to last for at least one year and the allowance is subject to a medical assessment, a means test and a habitual residency test. DA is structured to support recipients to avail of opportunities to pursue their own employment ambitions, be...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Schemes (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The EmployAbility Service is an important service which is delivered by individual contractors on behalf of my Department. Contracts for service have been entered into with 24 organisations around the state, currently servicing approximately 3000 clients. The EmployAbility Service contracts describe the employment service to be delivered and the funding available to an organisation for the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Rates (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Wage Subsidy Scheme is an employment support to private sector employers, the objective of which is to encourage employers to employ people with disabilities and thereby increase the numbers of people with disabilities participating in the open labour market. The scheme provides financial incentives to private sector employers to hire people with a disability for between 21 and 39...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Programme for Government commits to fine-tune and expand targeted employment schemes, such as the Ability Programme, to help more people with disabilities stay in the workforce. The Ability Programme was introduced in June 2018 for a three-year period and is a pre-activation programme for young people with disabilities. The funding for the Programme will amount to around €16...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Equality Training (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Disability Awareness Support Scheme (DASS) provides a contribution towards the cost of disability awareness training for private sector employers. The training to be delivered must, for example, provide clear and accurate information about disability, address questions that employers/employees may have, and cover anti-discrimination/equal opportunities legislation. It is important to...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Employment Support Services (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: Through the Comprehensive Employment Strategy, the Government recognises the importance for people with disabilities of participation in employment. As part of the strategy, the Department of Social Protection (DSP) is committed to improving employment outcomes and removing barriers to employment for persons with a disability. The DSP supports for people with disabilities have been...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: This week, just under 228,000 people will receive a Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP), the lowest number to date in 2021, and a decline of 53% since the February 2021 peak. This is a decline of 16,200 (-6.6 %) people compared to last week, and a decline of 175,100 or -43.4% since the Construction sector re-opened. The following table sets out recipient numbers for the February 2021 peak,...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: When a person closes their Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) claim, they are asked to indicate if they are closing their claim due to returning to work. In the week up to June 29th 2021, some 11,159 people closed their claim and reported that it was because they were returning to work. There is no mechanism in place to identify whether the person is returning to their last employer, or...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Youth Unemployment (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: My Department has been closely and regularly monitoring the impacts of the pandemic on the labour market, including its impacts on youth unemployment levels. Research from my Department has shown that young persons make up a significant share of the workers in those sectors most impacted by the pandemic and associated public health restrictions, namely hospitality (accommodation &...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Labour Market (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: Prior to the pandemic, the unemployment rate in Q4 2019 stood at approximately 4.5 percent. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, both employment and unemployment levels have been adversely impacted. Latest estimates from the CSO indicate that, as of June 2021, the traditional unemployment rate stood at 8.1 percent. However, this estimate excludes those in receipt of the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: Under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, my Department may make a single exceptional needs payment (ENP) to help meet essential, once-off expenditure which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income. An urgent needs payment (UNP) may be made to persons who may not normally qualify for supplementary welfare allowance but who have an urgent need which...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Cross-Border Co-operation (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: As the Deputy will be aware ,my Department and wider Government, are committed to supporting a range of initiatives to assist people back to work as outlined under the Government’s ‘Economic Recovery Plan’ (ERP) and the forthcoming Pathways to Work 2021 – 2025 strategy. As part of the ongoing monitoring of labour market developments, my Department chairs an...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Budgets (1 Jul 2021)

Heather Humphreys: The Deputy will be aware of the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on Department of Social Protection expenditure. While the pre-Covid 2020 estimate for the expenditure was €21.2 billion, the 2020 provisional outturn at the end of the year is approximately €30.5 billion. This year, the original estimate agreed in October 2020 of €25.1 billion was increased to...