Results 1-20 of 14,100 for speaker:Dara Calleary

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department provides a suite of income supports for those unable to work due to illness or disability. These include insurance-based schemes, based on Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI) contributions, and means-tested social assistance schemes. Invalidity Pension is a weekly payment to people who are regarded as being permanently incapable of work because of a long-term illness or...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) was introduced in 2020 in response to the unprecedented disruption caused to the Irish labour market on foot of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Some 880,000 people received at least one payment under the scheme. In total, some 30 million individual payments issued under the scheme. The Department is undertaking a number of reviews aimed at identifying cases...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: Treatment Benefit is a PRSI-based scheme which provides free dental and optical services, along with assistance towards the provision of audiological appliances and hair replacement products, to people who satisfy certain qualifying conditions, and to their dependent spouses/partners. The Department is committed to an annual review of the Treatment Benefit Optical scheme. The Department...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: Child Benefit is a monthly payment to the parents or guardians of children under 16 years of age. Child Benefit can also be claimed for children aged 16,17 and 18 if they are in full-time education or full-time training or have a disability and cannot support themselves. Child Benefit becomes payable in respect of newborn babies in the month after their birth. As part of Budget 2025, a...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Government is very aware of the key role that family carers play in Irish society and the challenges they face and is fully committed to supporting carers in that role. From July 2025, the weekly income disregard for Carer's Allowance will increase from €450 to €625 for a single person, and from €900 to €1,250 for carers with a spouse or partner. This will...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Homemakers Disregard Scheme was introduced in April 1994 for use in the Yearly Average (YA) calculation of the State Pension (Contributory). This allowed an applicant to apply under the Homemaker's Scheme for those years out of the workforce since April 1994 spent caring for children under age 12 or other dependent relatives to be disregarded in the calculation under the Yearly Average...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: School Meals Programme (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The objective of the School Meals Programme is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. The programme is an important component of policies to encourage school attendance and extra educational achievement. Funding under the programme is solely for food. My Department has engaged with a number of schools...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The Department provides support for workers on Short-Time Work under the Jobseeker's Benefit scheme. This is an income support payment for those who have been temporarily placed on a shorter working week by their employer and which has worked effectively in response to challenges facing businesses. For example, if a person's working week has been reduced from a 5 day work pattern to a 3...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: In general, the issue of targeted supports for businesses is a matter for the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment. There are no proposals for a PRSI rebate for SMEs. Any changes to the PRSI employer rates or threshold would have to be considered in a budgetary context, taking account of the economic circumstances and with a view to the sustainability of the Social Insurance...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: The primary responsibility for housing and managing homelessness lies with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the local authorities. This responsibility includes the accommodation needs of young persons leaving all forms of State care. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has responsibility for after care provision, for young...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Schemes (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: Jobseeker's Pay-Related Benefit is a new social insurance income support, linked to previous earnings, which has replaced the Jobseeker's Benefit scheme for people whose first day of unemployment is on or after 31 March 2025. This means that in order to be eligible to apply for the scheme, a person's last day of employment must have been on or after Friday 28 March 2025. A commencement...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Artificial Intelligence (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department has no current requirement for a data collection and database construction in anticipation of the presumed increased data processing capacity that artificial intelligence adoption entails.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Artificial Intelligence (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department does not currently have any projects underway with the company referred to.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Artificial Intelligence (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: There are four bodies under the aegis of my Department; The Citizens Information Board, The Pensions Authority, The Pensions Council and The Social Welfare Tribunal. All of these bodies have confirmed that they do not have any projects with the company referred to.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Artificial Intelligence (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department is currently examining the potential future use of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) technologies. This has involved active participation in several stakeholder groups, such as, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment's working group on the implementation of EU AI Act. The use of A.I. is not currently being examined by any policy area in my Department.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Artificial Intelligence (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department has not developed its own training in relation to AI. However, staff in the Department may avail of training courses on Artificial Intelligence provided by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Institute of Public Administration, or other providers.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Correspondence (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department provides a range of supports including approximately 87 million individual payments, over 3 million income support applications and over 900,000 employment support activities each year. Customers may contact my Department through a range of channels. This includes by phone, post, email and online via MyWelfare. Data is not collated on the number of letters received from...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Correspondence (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department provides a range of supports including approximately 87 million individual payments, over 3 million income support applications and over 900,000 employment support activities each year. Customers may contact my Department through a range of channels. This includes by phone, post, email and online via MyWelfare. A breakdown of emails received from the public specifically...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Functions (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department's business priorities are to continually improve services to customers in an agile manner to best meet the needs of our customers in a cost-effective and efficient manner and to support the delivery of Government policy. My Department, as an ongoing focus, uses business process review and improvement as well as technology to achieve efficiencies and to alleviate or...

Written Answers — Department of Rural and Community Development: Departmental Funding (10 Apr 2025)

Dara Calleary: My Department has a number of capital programmes designed to support community groups with capital funding towards the renovation and upgrade of community halls. The Community Centre Investment Fund (CCIF)has provided in excess of €109 million since 2022 for the enhancement and refurbishment of existing community centres and the construction of new centres. In April 2024,...