Results 17,881-17,900 of 27,613 for speaker:Heather Humphreys

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Invalidity Pension (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: Invalidity pension (IP) is a payment for people who are permanently incapable of work because of illness or incapacity and for no other reason and who satisfy the pay related social insurance (PRSI) contribution conditions. The department received a claim for IP for the gentleman concerned on 10 June 2020. The claim was refused on the grounds that the medical conditions for the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Fuel Allowance (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The fuel allowance is a payment of €24.50 per week for 28 weeks (a total of €686 each year) from October to April, to over 352,000 low income households, at an estimated cost of €261.35 million in 2020.  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...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance Scheme (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme provides a once-off payment to eligible families to assist with the costs of clothing and footwear when children start or return to school each autumn.  The allowance is payable for eligible children between the ages of 4 and 17 in respect of whom a qualified child increase is being paid.  It is also payable to...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The number of people receiving a Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) by the payable rate for the week ending 2nd October 2020 is set out in Table 1. The total gross inflow (that is, new PUP claimants) to the PUP for each week since restrictions were introduced for Dublin and Donegal are set out in Table 2. The net weekly change, that is inflows to PUP less outflows...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The person concerned made a claim for Jobseekers Benefit on 4/8/2020 which was disallowed on 29/09/2020 as follows:  To qualify for Jobseeker's a person must be available for full-time work. The reason for this decision is that the person concerned is registered with Hibernian College, and is expected to complete an average of 37 hours study per week. ...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Community Employment Schemes (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The Community Employment (CE) programme is a community centred labour market initiative established for the purposes of social inclusion and activation, to help long-term unemployed people and other vulnerable groups to enter the workforce by breaking their experience of unemployment. In early 2019, the Government agreed to establish an Interdepartmental Group (IDG) to explore how social...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: Since the introduction of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment scheme in March, approximately 750,000 people have applied for payment and in some cases, they have done so on a number of occasions as they moved in and out of employment. Consequently, there are over 1 million applications to be examined to determine if arrears are due. During the month of March, my Department received and...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Inspections (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The information requested by the Deputy cannot be provided within the timeframe available. The Department is now seeking to compile the data sought by the Deputy and will provide the relevant information directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Fuel Allowance (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: Fuel allowance is a means-tested payment to assist householders on long-term social welfare payments towards the cost of their heating needs.  The main eligibility conditions that apply to the fuel allowance scheme are that a person must be in receipt of a qualifying payment, must satisfy a means test and must either be living alone or with other qualifying persons.  According to...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Fuel Allowance (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: No application for Fuel allowance has been received form the person concerned.  I have arranged for a fuel application form to issue to the person concerned.  On receipt of the completed application, eligibility for fuel allowance will be examined and the person will be notified in writing of the decision. Fuel allowance is a means-tested payment to assist householders on...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Widow's Pension (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: A person claiming Widow's, Widower's or Surviving Civil Partner's Contributory Pension must provide evidence they are the legal widow, widower or surviving civil partner.  Where the marriage took place outside the state, the person must provide the original marriage certificate as evidence. The person concerned provided a sworn affidavit as to marriage;...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: Employees and self-employed people who lose their employment as a consequence of the pandemic may apply for the Pandemic Unemployment Payment.  The scheme has been extended until the end of March 2021 to support employees and businesses that continue to be impacted by the pandemic.  I have also secured agreement that the scheme will remain open to new applicants until the end...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: JobPath Programme (1 Oct 2020)

Heather Humphreys: JobPath provides the long term unemployed an employment service. This service seeks to support the long-term unemployed to obtain and sustain paid employment. The service is delivered by two companies, Turas Nua Limited and Seetec Limited on behalf of my Department.  Between July 2015 and the end of August 2020, some 276,149 jobseekers had engaged with the JobPath service. This...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Covid-19 Pandemic (30 Sep 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The determination of whether a person is entitled to payment from their employer in respect of a public holiday is governed by the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997.  Under the Act, for each of the nine public holidays in a year, an employee is entitled to either a paid day off on the holiday, a paid day off within a month of the holiday, an extra day’s annual leave, or an...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (30 Sep 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The Government has agreed to extend the date for applications for the Pandemic Unemployment Payment to the end of the year.  The payment was due to close to new applications on the 17th September 2020 but it has been decided to extend this period at this time. Where a person returning from maternity leave has lost her employment as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic they...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Departmental Reviews (30 Sep 2020)

Heather Humphreys: I propose to take Questions Nos. 154 and 155 together. The selection of the membership of the Child Maintenance Review Group is designed to include a cross-section of people with knowledge, experience and expertise in this specialised area. I understand that the Child Maintenance Review Group will be consulting widely and requesting input from the civil society and...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Back to Education Allowance (30 Sep 2020)

Heather Humphreys: According to the records of the Department, the person concerned was awarded a Jobseeker's Allowance payment from 31/08/2020. The person concerned was subsequently advised by letter on 23/09/2020 that his application for Back to Education Allowance (BTEA) had been provisionally approved pending the return of further documentation/information to the Tallaght Intreo Centre at the...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Public Services Card (30 Sep 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The SAFE registration process, which my Department uses to authenticate a person's identity, is a face- to-face process which results in the issuing of a Public Services Card (PSC).  At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, my Department temporarily postponed the SAFE registration process.  This decision was taken to comply with HSE and WHO guidelines in respect...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Pension Provisions (30 Sep 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The person concerned reached pension age on 24 September 2018.  According to the records of my Department, they have a total of 929 qualifying full-rate paid contributions and 674 credited contributions from their date of entry into insurable employment on 6 August 1969 to end-December 2017.  This equates to a yearly average of 33 contributions and gives them an entitlement to a...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (30 Sep 2020)

Heather Humphreys: The cost of reinstating the pre-17 September 2020 rates from January to end-March 2021 is estimated at an additional €148 million.  This estimate is subject to change as trends in the numbers of PUP recipients evolve in the coming weeks and months.