Results 17,621-17,640 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: The Deputy is referring to a statistical fallacy. If I get the chance, I will go into the-----
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: The Deputy knows that more than 100,000 men lost their jobs in construction.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: Happily, many of them are going back to work.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: Absolutely. I will make it again today if the Deputy chooses.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: Absolutely, and it is correct.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: People may possibly have forgotten that last April, when the weather continued to be cold, I extended the payment of the fuel allowance by an extra week.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: What is being suggested here-----
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: -----is that there would be no discretion to, for example, increase payments to particular categories of people and that the legislative route should be taken on each occasion the latter needed to be done. All I am saying is that the Deputies opposite should be very careful what they wish for.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: This feature of our social welfare system is probably unique in Europe if not the world.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: On the point relating to the core weekly payments, the single largest proportion of the Department's expenditure relates to pensions and the next largest relates to widows and widowers. Of the €19.6 billion the Department will spend this year, €6.5 billion, or 32%, exclusively relates to pensions. If anyone is suggesting that protecting the core weekly rate of the pension is...
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: This year the Department will be spending an additional €190 million in respect of the increased number of people who will qualify for contributory and non-contributory pension payments.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: That is a credit to Irish society and to every political party in this House which has actually prioritised this matter. Suggestions, therefore, that------
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: We started much earlier.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: I was just pointing out that contributory and non-contributory pensions account for over 32% of all the funds the Department spends and that is right and proper.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: Included in that spend for this year is an extra €190 million for the additional numbers of people who are reaching retirement age.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: It was very late last night when the Deputy referred to me as Wonder Woman and I took it as a compliment.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: The Deputy should not start calling anyone Wonder Woman this early in the morning.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: Some Deputies have proposed that PRSI for employers and employees should be increased. In the context of Deputy O'Dea's amendment relates to the broadening of the PRSI base, which is what is set out in section 3. The measure in section 3 is a result of the demographic changes to which I have just referred and which, happily, mean that there are pensioners and that retired people are living...
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: What we are doing now is engaging in a modest expansion whereby people with other incomes of less than €3,174 will not be charged the additional amount of PRSI.
- Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)
Joan Burton: I will take some of the general points first, starting with the point made by Deputy Catherine Murphy and other Deputies about why the household benefits package is not set out in legislation. The Deputies should be very careful with regard to what they wish for. Depending on the perspective from which one considers the matter, one of the problems or positives relating to our social welfare...