Results 121-140 of 157 for 5 million speaker:Regina Doherty

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Living Alone Allowance (12 Oct 2017)

Regina Doherty: .... The objective of the payment is to compensate for the additional individual costs of living alone when compared to a couple or family. The cost of raising the living alone increase from €9 to €15 per week is estimated to be €62.8 million in 2018. I was pleased to a nnounce on Budget Day earlier this week that the maximum weekly rates of payment of all pension...

Financial Resolutions 2018 - Financial Resolution No. 4: General (Resumed) (11 Oct 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...months but as the budget legislation is before the House tonight and I will be sharing colleagues' time, I will just touch on some of them. I was pleased to be able to announce, with support, the €5 increase in the maximum weekly rates of payment for all social welfare recipients this year, commencing from 26 March. There are proportionate increases for those on reduced rates of...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Rent Supplement Scheme Administration (10 Oct 2017)

Regina Doherty: I propose to take Questions Nos. 659, 678 and 691 together. The rent supplement scheme, administered by my Department, plays a vital role in housing families and individuals, with the scheme supporting in excess of 37,460 recipients for which the Government has provided €253 million for in 2017. A county breakdown of rent supplements recipients as at end September 2017 is provided in...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Farm Assist Scheme Payments (10 Oct 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...of the jobseeker’s allowance scheme such as the retention of secondary benefits and access to activation programmes. The 2017 Revised Estimates for my Department provide for expenditure of €82.8 million on the farm assist scheme. Budget 2017 introduced measures in relation to the assessment of means for farm assist which reversed all changes introduced in Budgets 2012...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (3 Oct 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...be paid in respect of children up to their 18th birthday who are in full-time education, or who have a disability. Child Benefit is currently paid to around 619,880 families in respect of some 1.2 million children, with an estimated expenditure of over €2 billion in 2017. The estimated cost of increasing Child Benefit by €5 to €145 per child is in the region of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection: Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection Remit and Legislative Agenda: Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection (28 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...employment affairs and social protection in the years ahead. It would be useful, in the first instance, to outline the scope and scale of the Department’s expenditure and its importance for millions of citizens in our country. An allocation of €19.85 billion was provided for the Department this year. This represents 37% of gross current Government expenditure. To the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Household Benefits Scheme (27 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...was able to retain the other valuable elements of the household benefits package such as the electricity and gas allowance and the television licence. My Department will spend approximately €232 million this year on these elements of the household benefits package for over 430,000 customers. The cost of the telephone allowance scheme had risen significantly each year, as the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits Data (21 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: I propose to take Questions Nos. 220, 221, 224 and 229 together. The cost of increasing the qualified child increase by €3.20, from €29.80 to €33 per week, is estimated at €62.4 million in 2018 and a full year. This includes the costs associated with the Back to Work Family Dividend (€2.3 million), the weekly rate of which is based on the rate of the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits Data (21 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...earnings with children. FIS is designed to prevent in-work poverty for low paid workers with child dependants and to offer a financial incentive to take-up employment. There are currently nearly 57,000 families with more than 126,000 children in receipt of FIS. The estimated spend on FIS this year is approximately €422 million. To qualify for FIS, a person must be engaged in...

Other Questions: Public Services Card (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...an unreasonable condition given the value of payments made to customers and the overwhelming majority of customers have no difficulty in completing the process. As of yesterday, we were at 2.87 million. As I explained to Deputy Curran's colleague earlier in regard to a similar question, my Department and I have no plans to introduce any changes to the PSC other than those proposed in...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Household Benefits Scheme (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...a license already purchased is based on the approved date of the Household Benefits Package. In 2011, expenditure for the TV licence scheme was capped at 2010 levels and was subsequently cut by €5 million in the 2014 Budget. Prior to the cap and the cut to funding payments were made to DCCAE on a monthly basis using an agreed formula based on a percentage of the Department's...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Household Benefits Scheme (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: The household benefits package (HHB) comprises the electricity or gas allowance, and the free television licence. Prior to the capping of expenditure at 2010 levels and the subsequent cut of €5 million in the 2014 Budget for the Free TV licence scheme, payments were made to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, (DCCAE) for the Free TV licence scheme on...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Household Benefits Scheme (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...was able to retain the other valuable elements of the household benefits package such as the electricity and gas allowance and the television licence. My Department will spend approximately €232 million this year on these elements of the household benefits package for over 429,000 customers. The cost of the telephone allowance scheme had risen significantly each year, as the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (20 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...and Pensions Act 2011 provided that State pension age will be increased gradually to 68 years. This began in January 2014 with the abolition of the State pension (transition) available from 65 for those who satisfied the qualifying conditions, thereby standardising State pension age for all at 66 years, which is the current State pension age. This will increase to 67 in 2021 and to 68 in...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Child Benefit Expenditure (11 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...be paid in respect of children up to their 18th birthday who are in full-time education, or who have a disability. Child Benefit is currently paid to around 627,000 families in respect of some 1.2 million children, with an estimated expenditure of over €2 billion in 2017. Between 2000 and 2009, there were significant increases in Child Benefit payments and during that period...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions Payments (11 Sep 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...and Pensions Act 2011 provided that State pension age will be increased gradually to 68 years. This began in January 2014 with the abolition of the State pension (transition) available from 65 for those who satisfied the qualifying conditions, thereby standardising State pension age for all at 66 years, which is the current State pension age. This will increase to 67 in 2021 and to 68 in...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Household Benefits Scheme (26 Jul 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...was able to retain the other valuable elements of the household benefits package such as the electricity and gas allowance and the television licence. My Department will spend approximately €232 million this year on these elements of the household benefits package for over 428,000 customers. The cost of the telephone allowance scheme had risen significantly each year, as the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits Data (26 Jul 2017)

Regina Doherty: I propose to take Questions Nos. 1475, 1521, 1522, 1523 and 1560 together. The fuel allowance is a payment of €22.50 per week for 26 weeks from October to April, to over 390,000 low income households. This payment assists these households with the higher energy costs that arise in that period. It is a contribution towards the energy costs of a household. It is not intended to...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Public Services Card (26 Jul 2017)

Regina Doherty: My Department commenced issuing Public Services Cards (PSC) on a phased basis from October 2011. Since then it has issued over 2.71 million PSCs. A breakdown of the number of PSCs issued per annum is - PSCs issued from 2012 to 2017 (to date) Year 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017(to date 21/7/17) PSCs issued 4,001 79,773 355,721 689,627 627,943 610,519 347,537 Running total 4,001...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Child Poverty (26 Jul 2017)

Regina Doherty: ...200,000 people out of ‘combined poverty’ (i.e. at-risk-of-poverty and/or basic deprivation) by 2020. The latest national data from the CSO Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) for 2015 show improvements in the key poverty targets. Consistent poverty, having fallen to 8.8 per cent in 2014, stabilised at 8.7 per cent in 2015. A reduction of almost 5 percentage...