Results 18,601-18,620 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Other Questions: Family Income Supplement (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I share the Deputy's concern. As is the case with any in-work payment, there is a worry that low pay might be subsidised and facilitated. That is a big issue in the United Kingdom where I think they have very much gone down that road. We always need to guard against that. FIS is, of course, about more than pay. It is also about family size, so there are people on low pay who do not...

Other Questions: Family Income Supplement (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I very much agree with what the Deputy has said. I look forward to engaging with the committee on this and talking to the various spokespeople in the run-up to the budget.

Other Questions: Unemployment Levels (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: The official measure of unemployment comes from the quarterly national household survey. The most recent data show that unemployment has fallen from a peak of 15% in 2012 to 6.7% at the end of 2016. Numbers at work have increased from 1.825 million at the start of 2012 to 2.048 million at the end of last year, which is an increase of almost 250,000 people. Within the south east,...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Community Employment Schemes Operation (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: The way it works is that anyone who has a start date for a CE scheme - and if that start date is within four weeks - can take that up ahead of any referral to a job provider such as Turas Nua or Seetec. The Department's policy is one of work and jobs first. We want to get people into regular employment and reserve places on employment programmes like CE and Tús for those who are unable...

Other Questions: Free Travel Scheme (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 41 and 49 together. The free travel scheme is a valuable support for older people, those with disabilities, carers and their companions. I am fully committed to its retention and I am keen to see more private bus operators participating in the free travel scheme, particularly across rural Ireland. My Department, the Department of Transport, Tourism and...

Other Questions: Free Travel Scheme (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: First of all, it is not within the gift of my Department. Any money we spend on free travel is taxpayers' money. It says a lot about the Deputy's political philosophy that he sees taxpayers' money as a gift that the Government can just give out to resolve problems in companies, pay off debts or solve other difficulties. If we are using taxpayers' money, we expect to get something, such as...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: State Pension (Contributory) Eligibility (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I did not mention the homemaker's scheme at all.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: State Pension (Contributory) Eligibility (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Perhaps the person who writes Deputy Brady's scripts might give him option A, B and C and suggest that if the Minister says this he should use option A, for example.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: State Pension (Contributory) Eligibility (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I am not sure which policy office prepares Deputy Brady's scripts - the one in Dublin or the one in Belfast - but he should ask for a few different options so that his supplementary questions might follow on from something I said.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: State Pension (Contributory) Eligibility (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: There are different types of pension. There is the State pension, non-contributory, which is means tested and it is based on one's means; and there is the State pension, contributory, which is based on how much one paid into the Social Insurance Fund. It is very similar to occupational pensions that are paid to public servants and to the pension Deputy Brady will get paid for his service as...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: State Pension (Contributory) Eligibility (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I certainly do want to see the gender pension gap reduce and it is reducing. In 2014 the gap was 32%, which is a fall of 5% on two years previously, and the gap is lower than it is in the EU, which is 39%; in the Netherlands it is 40% and in Germany it is 48%. We anticipate that the gap will fall. The best way to ensure the gender pension gap continues to fall is to increase the number of...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Community Employment Schemes Operation (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: As the economic recovery takes hold and the overall level of unemployment continues to fall, the need to adapt employment programmes such as community employment and Tús to the changing circumstances, opportunities and the needs of jobseekers has become more apparent and urgent. With this in mind, my Department undertook an analysis of CE, which also looked at other employment...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Community Employment Schemes Operation (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I would very much like to increase the materials and training grant and to increase the €22.50 top-up paid to participants in the schemes. However, these are budgetary matters and I am sure there will be competing priorities for the budget this autumn, as is always the case. They will certainly be on my ask list. I cannot guarantee that I will be able to deliver on them, but I will...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Labour Activation Projects (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Absolutely. I have already released figures.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Labour Activation Projects (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: They only get paid by results - the result being somebody taking up sustainable employment of more than 30 hours per week for which he or she is paid. They also only get paid if the person sustains the job for more than 13 weeks. That is a good model. If it is such a lucrative thing, I do not see the other groups signing up for payment by results. If payment by results is so lucrative,...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Labour Activation Measures (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: My Department is committed, under Pathways to Work, to incentivise the take-up of activation and job opportunities, including implementing sanctions for failure to engage with the activation process. The Social Welfare Act 2010, enacted in December of that year, provided for the introduction of reduced rates of payment to people who did not engage with the State’s employment services....

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Labour Activation Measures (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Even at a time of relatively low unemployment, there are still 300,000 people who come on and off the live register in a given year. Of those, perhaps 10,000 might be subjected to reduced payments. It is a very small percentage of people who have their payments reduced. It is not as if it is 10% or even 5%. It is considerably less than that, so it is important to bear that in mind. There...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Labour Activation Measures (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: There are safeguards already. Under the previous regime, one's payments were stopped altogether if one was determined not to be genuinely seeking work. Under this regime, payments are only reduced by a certain amount and the payment in respect of a child is never reduced, nor is the payment in respect of a qualified adult. The secondary payments, such as the fuel allowance, are not...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: State Pension (Contributory) Eligibility (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: The average pensions paid by my Department to men and women over 66 years of age are within 2% of each other. This is reflected in the consistent poverty figures for people over 65 years of age, which show 2.6% of women and 2.9% of men experience consistent poverty, which, effectively, is parity. In fact, men are slightly more at risk of poverty in old age than women. The current rate...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Citizen Information Services (11 Apr 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I do not know what the composition of the board will be. It would certainly make sense to have representatives of those organisations on it and I can certainly convey that to the chairman. I should say this is a decision of the Citizens Information Board, not a Government decision. There is a reason we have State boards, that is, so that some decisions can be made at arm's length....