Results 1,481-1,500 of 12,033 for speaker:Regina Doherty

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (27 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: The COVID 19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment was introduced in March 2020 as a time-limited emergency measure to meet the surge in unemployment which resulted from the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic. For self-employed people, they must have experienced a collapse of income and be available to take up other full-time work if it was available to them in order to qualify. Where a...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic (27 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: I am advised that the information requested in respect of the breakdown by profession of working age persons diagnosed with Covid-19 by the Deputy is not available in my Department, it does however fall under the remit of my colleague in the Department of Health. However estimates of the employment sector for those medically certified for the Enhanced Illness Benefit claim are available each...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (27 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: The Department offers income supports through a range of social insurance benefits and means-tested social assistance payments. Entitlement to social insurance benefits, such as Illness Benefit, is dependent on a person's Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) contribution history. Where a person does not have sufficient contributions to qualify for a social insurance benefit or reaches the end...

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: The supplementary welfare payment does not try to bring everybody up to the €350 payment. Rather, it looks at individual outgoings. For example, the Deputy's household might be different to my household if we were both over 66. We are looking at people as individuals, taking account of their outgoings and whether they are necessary. For example, we might pay for somebody's mortgage...

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: I thank the Deputy for the good wishes. I will provide the numbers in writing because I do not have them with me. Anyone who did not have a PPS number was not entitled to the PUP. Someone needed to be working in-----

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: We have issued 5,000 plus PPS numbers to people, most of whom are foreign students or others from abroad whom we probably did not know about beforehand. In the absence of a PPS number, we have been giving people the supplementary welfare allowance, a weekly payment equivalent to what they require to meet their needs. The task force is working, but I am not aware of anyone who is not...

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: Yes.

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: I will get that to the Deputy, if not today, then tomorrow.

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: The response that was formulated was driven by the Departments of Justice and Equality and Children and Youth Affairs, which are responsible for providing for the needs in question. Safe Ireland and the National Women's Council approached us in recent weeks to say that the supplement had not been working exactly how they had envisaged. They asked whether we could be the direct referral body...

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: They have to be. To be honest, the numbers applying for rent supplement in recent months have not been large. That section is looking after people on the same day they come in or the next day.

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: I beg the Deputy's pardon. The scheme was set up for income lost but not forgone income. It would be incredibly difficult to figure out who was or was not going to get a job. That is not to say the social welfare code does not look after those people. They are all entitled to apply for jobseeker's benefit or jobseeker's allowance.

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: Deputy Michael Healy-Rae noted that other people have brought up the question of maternity leave extension. I have said it is not within my remit but I will certainly bring people's concerns to the Minister for Justice and Equality. There was mention of seasonal workers and those who are over the age of 66. With respect, the position with those over 66 arises because the current...

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: I thank the Deputy for the good wishes and the compliments he gave me earlier. I am very glad I have no responsibility for the public health response or the contract tracing. The witnesses who were here yesterday are the people to whom the Deputy probably should have addressed those questions. Regarding the payments, there does not need to be an extension because the law allows people...

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: If those people are self-isolating and have certs from their GPs stating they are self-isolating because they are vulnerable, they can apply for the two two-week periods. However, somebody who is vulnerable obviously does not stop being vulnerable after the two weeks, so then such people are entitled to apply for the Covid PUP as long as they make a declaration that their income has fallen...

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: I believe I mentioned earlier that, under the Social Welfare Consolidation Act, people who are entitled to receive employment or unemployment benefits are stipulated to be between the ages of 18 and 66, the pensionable age. On becoming 66, a person becomes pensionable and receives his or her payment. On the first question the Deputy asked me, if somebody is not in receipt of a pension, he...

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: I will send Deputies Bríd Smith and Barry copies of the letter I sent to Mandate in response this afternoon and I will answer Deputy Bríd Smith's questions on maternity leave and direct provision. I am aware that there is a request and a large Uplift petition but, unfortunately, the matter does not fall within the remit of my Department. It falls within that of the Department of...

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: Maternity leave is a policy issue for the Department of Justice and Equality. The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection just pays the benefit that is associated with the people who have the contributions towards. If a decision is made by the former Department, then we will comply with it. I will pass on the request Deputy Bríd Smith has made of me to the Minister for...

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: With the question on Debenhams, is the Deputy asking me to comment on the letters between me and Mandate, or was it something else?

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: I replied to Mandate this afternoon. I will get a copy of the letter for the Deputy.

Covid-19 (Employment Affairs and Social Protection): Statements (20 May 2020)

Regina Doherty: There are two schemes specifically for artists. Thankfully this House introduced jobseeker's benefit for the self-employed only last November. It did not exist previously and it would have cut out a large cohort of people from the pandemic payment otherwise. There is a jobseeker's payment for artists that allows them to continue to try to ply their trade and make money from it without...