Results 1-20 of 65 for carers speaker:Joan Collins

Disability Justice: Motion [Private Members] (17 Apr 2024)

Joan Collins: ...Dáil. I welcome the news that the Government is planning to scrap the Green Paper on Disability Reform. The proposals were widely condemned by a broad coalition of disability, mental health and carers' groups. I am glad the Government has recognised, as everybody else has, just how unfit for purpose the Green Paper was. This was, however, a shameful attempt to reform the system to...

Select Committee on Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 37 - Social Protection (Revised) (7 Feb 2024)

Joan Collins: ...issue up in. It relates to the double payments, Christmas bonuses and that. A neighbour of mine went on jobseeker's allowance in November, but had previously been on supplementary welfare and carer's allowance for looking after his mother. He did not get the Christmas bonus. I submitted a question to the Minister, who reviewed the case and established that he was entitled to the...

An Bille up an Daicheadú Leasú ar an mBunreacht (Cúram), 2023: An Dara Céim - Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Second Stage (14 Dec 2023)

Joan Collins: ...to stay in the home. I was very startled by the fact that I had to do something like that in respect of our home. I therefore welcome the 39th and 40th amendments. This is an obvious letdown for carers in Ireland, but these measures with regard to the family and a woman's place in the home should be welcomed. We should not be too self-congratulatory. Parts of our Constitution are...

Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2023: Second Stage (23 Nov 2023)

Joan Collins: ...have come through this Bill and the once-off payments, and I know the hundreds of thousands of people depending on social protection welcome them as well. I welcome the change in the policy around carers and around teenagers at 18 holding onto child benefit when going to university. That has a huge impact on families. The €12 addition to core social welfare rates is better...

Childcare Fees: Motion [Private Members] (3 Oct 2023)

Joan Collins: .... We need a better childcare system in this country, which needs to be a public system provided by the State, staffed with public workers, and free at the point of access. Early childcare providers are carers and educators. This needs to be recognised. In my mind there is no place in the education of our children for profit and for all the corners that are cut to make profit. The...

Respite Care Services: Motion [Private Members] (30 May 2023)

Joan Collins: ..., and no ratification of the optional protocol. I do not see where any progress has been made on Deputy Connolly's motion. There has long been sustained calls for the importance of the work of family carers to be properly recognised in this country, by Members of this House, by civil society groups and, most importantly, by family carers, many of whom rely on inadequate fixed incomes from...

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate: Work Permits (23 May 2023)

Joan Collins: .... The QQI courses cost up to €1,700 and the workers covers that expense. Will the State negotiate changing the conditions to allow these workers to be recognised and become healthcare assistant carers on the basis of their nursing qualifications and completion of an English language test and adaptation course for the Irish health system? It seems crazy that these nurses are...

Reform of Carer's Allowance Scheme: Motion [Private Members] (22 Mar 2023)

Joan Collins: This motion is full of very detailed, researched information on carers and their lives in Ireland. I will highlight the most important figure in the motion, that is, the €20 billion saved by the State through the 1 billion hours of unpaid care that takes place in families throughout the country each year. Successive Governments have long relied on the unpaid work of hundreds of...

High Energy Costs: Motion [Private Members] (7 Mar 2023)

Joan Collins: ...since 2021. If that is not a crisis, I do not know what is. People may have heard a morning radio programme last Friday during which a mother, Tracy Carroll, from Kells, County Meath, who is a full-time carer for her daughter, contributed. Her daughter has complex medical needs and needs 24-7 care. She also has a son with additional needs. Family carers, as we know, are...

Cost-of-Living Supports: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (14 Feb 2023)

Joan Collins: ...nearly keeping up with any of that. People need assistance and they need more help than the current social welfare system offers them. People on social welfare, pensioners, people with disabilities, carers and lone parents need not just temporary supports and payments, but real increases in benefits to match inflation and get them back above water. There is a need for a €15 per...

Report on the Summer Programme 2023: Motion [Private Members] (2 Feb 2023)

Joan Collins: .... We know what the key issues are. They have been read out already but it is important to go back over them very briefly. They include regression over the summer holiday period; strain on carers and their families; delays in schools confirming participation in the programme; the expansion of the cohort to whom the summer programme is available and targeting pupils most in need of the...

Home Care: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (8 Nov 2022)

Joan Collins: ..."further calls on the Government to set out, before the 31st December, 2022, a timeline for full implementation of the 16 recommendations in the Report of the Strategic Workforce Advisory Group on Home Carers and Nursing Home Health Care Assistants". A woman contacted me last November when a home care package from the company Care for Me, which had been place since May 2017, for 31.5...

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate: Disability Services (18 Oct 2022)

Joan Collins: ...at least eight weeks to perform tests. Garda vetting will also have to be done and then the training. Therefore, it will not happen today or tomorrow. This will be a long-term resolution. Carers need a Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, level 5 qualification to escort the service users. I have been advised that the past two and a half months were worse than the two and a half...

Electricity Costs (Domestic Electricity Accounts) Emergency Measures and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022: Second Stage (Resumed) (11 Oct 2022)

Joan Collins: The Government had a number of options to alleviate the cost of electricity facing families, older people, people with disabilities, carers, small businesses, etc., but the option it chose was to pay the electricity credit. Other options mentioned included capping the prices charged by energy companies, nationalising those companies trading in Ireland, a windfall tax on energy companies or...

Financial Resolutions 2022 - Budget Statement 2023 (27 Sep 2022)

Joan Collins: ...;s previous budgets will have very little impact in changing this situation. To give one example, I will refer to a situation raised with me by constituent just last week. For some years she has been a carer for her mother on full carer's allowance of €240. Her mother obviously gets the State pension of about €250, giving them an average of more than €450 coming...

Emergency Budget: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (28 Jun 2022)

Joan Collins: ...of putting petrol or diesel into a car is now a major problem for many people, particularly those in rural areas with limited or zero public transport options and those who must drive as part of their work, including home carers. In June 2021, a litre of petrol was €1.49 but it is now more than €2. Diesel was €1.39 per litre and it is now more than €2. The...

Respite Care Services: Motion [Private Members] (22 Jun 2022)

Joan Collins: ...short in what is overall a lengthy and comprehensive document. It comprises two paragraphs along with a box of key points. It includes statistics for 2017 which show that only one in four family carers for those over five years of age with intellectual disabilities received any respite care and that was the case for only one in three of those caring for adults. I welcome the Minister of...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Social Welfare Payments (14 Jun 2022)

Joan Collins: 1185. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will increase the foster carer’s payment (details supplied) as a matter of urgency; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29725/22]

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (24 May 2022)

Joan Collins: ...has issued an automatic renewal for visas about to expire. The most recent automatic renewal only applies to visas due to expire before 31 May 2022. This means, for example, that more than 100 carers employed in south Dublin whose visas expire shortly after that date are ineligible for auto-extension. To date, no such extension of these immigration permits have been announced. We are...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (16 Dec 2021)

Joan Collins: ...come into this field, but they are bringing them into the same bad pay and conditions in the private health companies that have caused people to leave. Is the policy of the Government to recruit carers directly to the HSE to provide crucial services for people who are at a loss?