Results 17,581-17,600 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: On the last point, I was asked about the operation of social welfare inspectors at airports. The question applied only to that. Some people were under the impression that it applied only to people coming into the country but in several cases it applied to Irish people who had left the country but continued to claim and came back regularly to do so. My comment related only to that situation...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: We had a Government that drove up property prices through tax breaks. As Deputy Joan Collins and others have said, many people are in very expensive houses and what they owe is not reflected in the current value of the house. As a country we need to create resolutions for those people so that they can live with a sustainable payment. In recent years we have paid more than €300...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: Over a period of time the money that has been going into the mortgage interest supplement should be going into the resolution process. I am sure the Deputy does not mean to say what in effect she is suggesting, which is to hand a blank cheque to a bank to take the interest and offer the poor couple involved no resolution at all.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: I do not believe any Deputy in this House intends that. Nor do they intend that somebody in the building trade whose company might have fallen apart in 2008 and ended up on MIS might now be blocked from going back to work with the pickup in construction. It has become an unemployment trap. I invite Deputy Joan Collins to read up on how it has worked. Deputy Donnelly is right in saying...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: I have agreed with the Deputy on that

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: That is why it is phased over the next four years.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: I accept what both Opposition spokespeople have said that we need to see the roll-out. The roll-out is under way as we speak. The phase out period of this is four years. We have considerable leeway. It is generally couples who are on mortgage interest supplement. However, simply handing the banks a blank cheque which does nothing for the individual or couple for interest-only payments...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: I thank the Deputies who contributed to the debate on this section. Deputy Collins just quoted me from a few years ago about the lack of a resolution process and the disaster that was the guarantee. I stand over every word I said and I am glad the Deputy reminded me of that and of my earlier comments from Danny Blanchflower about the corrosive effect of young people not having a job. I...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: It is part of it.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: I thank all the Deputies who contributed to this debate. As a House, we should have ambitions for our young people. If the extent of the ambition of some of the Deputies here is to have young people signing on at 18 and staying like that for a long period of time, that is wrong. Deputy Catherine Murphy had the honesty to say that her preference was for education, training and employment...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: Can I continue? In a very tight budget, I have committed multiples of the savings made by this measure to additional training, education, work experience and work placement positions.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: Your idea for a 22 year old may be for them to be on social welfare. It is not my ambition. My ambition is to have people working and that is why we will have a flow of places. We expect that about 14,000 young people will be affected by this measure over the next year. Youth unemployment has been falling for a number of distinct reasons. First of all, there were fewer births in 1994 and...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: What I said is correct.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: Yes.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: It has gone out by way of circular.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: In the case of a person who dies, there is a range of supports-----

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: -----available from the Department of Social Protection which are very valuable and more valuable than the bereavement grant.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: Many speakers spoke about pensioners. If one partner of a pensioner couple dies, their spouse continues to get the social welfare payment of the deceased spouse for six weeks. That is worth roughly €1,200 to €1,400 depending on the rate the person receives. The second and the biggest payment the Department makes is in respect of a person who becomes widowed who is entitled to...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: These payments are far more significant than the €850 payment.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Joan Burton: For instance, in Tipperary the average payment - Deputy Healy is possibly not aware of this but I suspect he is very aware of it - by the community welfare service-----