Written Answers Nos. 62-69
63. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection if she will deal with a matter (details supplied) regarding entitlements; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41984/15]
View answerInvalidity pension (IP) is a payment for people who are permanently incapable of work because of illness or incapacity and who satisfy the pay related social insurance (PRSI) contribution conditions.
The person concerned is in receipt of IP at the maximum weekly personal rate and receives an increase (half rate) for three qualified children (IQC). He also has a travel pass and is in receipt of the Household Benefits Package which includes electricity allowance and free television licence. His spouse is in receipt of Illness Benefit (IB) and IQC (half rate) for three qualified children.
The person concerned does not qualify for the fuel allowance under the National Fuel Scheme as IB is a non-qualifying payment for receipt of fuel allowance. Full details of the qualifying criteria for fuel allowance are available on the Department’s website www.welfare.ie.
It is open to his spouse to make an application for IP and a decision on her eligibility will be made as soon as possible. A claim form has issued to her for completion.
64. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection if she will restore the training grant for community employment projects; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41985/15]
View answerThe training budget for community Employment (CE) has increased from €5.7m in 2013 and currently stands at €6.1m in 2015. It is anticipated that with the renewed focus on training under the programme that the budget will be fully expended in 2015.
The training budget is allocated across the Department’s thirteen divisions. A level of flexibility applies in the allocation of training costs per CE participant. Flexibility can be applied to exceed the average rate per place within a scheme and between schemes, once the overall divisional budget is not exceeded. Flexibility has been applied across divisions, for example, where a participant’s training is leading to a Major Award in Childcare or in Health and Social Care.
In allocating the budget to schemes, the Department also take into consideration whether the training can be provided by the Education and Training Boards (ETBs) at no additional cost to the scheme. In this context, it should be noted that approximately 4,000 components of learning were accessed by CE participants in 2014 through the ETBs, the majority of which were accredited.
65. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the status of an application under the domiciliary care allowance scheme by a person (details supplied) in County Meath; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41986/15]
View answerAn application for domiciliary care allowance was received from the person concerned on 11 December 2013. This application was not allowed as the child was not considered to satisfy the qualifying conditions for the allowance. A letter issued on the 18 February 2014 outlining the decision of the deciding officer to refuse the allowance.
A review of this decision was requested on 29 June 2015 and additional information on this child’s condition/care needs was supplied on 2 November 2015. The application together with the new information supplied has been forwarded to a medical assessor for their professional opinion. Once this opinion is received the application will be re-examined by a deciding officer and a revised decision will be made if warranted. The person concerned will be notified of the outcome of this review as soon as it is completed.
66. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the amount of funding allocated to citizens information centres, and to the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, in each of the past five years. [42010/15]
View answerThe Citizens Information Board (CIB) is the statutory body responsible for supporting the provision of information, advice (including money and budgeting advice service) and advocacy services on a wide range of public and social services. It delivers on its remit to provide services to the public by supporting a network of delivery partners, which includes 42 local Citizens Information Services (CIS) and 51 local Money Advice and Budgeting Services (MABS). The funding provided to CIS and MABS services for the years 2011 to 2015 inclusive was: –
|
Year |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
|
Citizens Information Services |
13.7m |
12.4m |
12.5m |
12.3m |
12.3m |
|
Money Advice and Budgeting Services |
18.3m |
18.3m |
19.1m |
18.3m |
17.9m |
67. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the number of staff in citizens information centres and in the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, in each of the past five years. [42011/15]
View answerThe Citizens Information Board (CIB) is the statutory body responsible for supporting the provision of information, advice (including money and budgeting advice) and advocacy services on a wide range of public and social services. It delivers on its remit through a network of delivery partners which includes 42 local Citizens Information Services (CIS) and 51 local Money Advice and Budgeting Services (MABS). The number of paid employees across this network in each of the past 5 years was –
|
Year |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
|
Citizens Information Services (whole time equivalents) |
185 |
182 |
182 |
181 |
185 |
|
Money Advice and Budgeting Services |
214 |
214 |
214 |
223 |
225 |
In addition, Citizens Information Services engage the services of employment scheme workers (approximately 130 whole time equivalents in 2014) and over 1,000 volunteers (approximately 124 whole time equivalents in 2014).
68. Deputy Jack Wall asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the status of the review of an application for a domiciliary care allowance by a person (details supplied) in County Kildare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42020/15]
View answerAn application for domiciliary care allowance was received from the person concerned on 22 June 2015. This application was not allowed as the child was not considered to satisfy the qualifying conditions for the allowance. A letter issued on the 5 October 2015 outlining the decision of the deciding officer to refuse the allowance.
A review of this decision was requested on 23 October 2015. The application will be re-examined by a deciding officer and a revised decision will be made if warranted. The person concerned will be notified of the outcome of the review as soon as it is completed. Such reviews can take up to 12 weeks to complete at present.
69. Deputy Joanna Tuffy asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the status of the part-time job initiative; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42023/15]
View answerThe part-time job incentive scheme is a non-statutory scheme, which allows people who are long-term unemployed to take up part-time employment for less than 24 hours per week and receive a special weekly income supplement. Participants on the scheme are expected to continue to make efforts to find full-time work. There are currently 381 participants on the scheme with a budget of just under €2 million for 2015.
To qualify for the part-time job incentive scheme a person must be in receipt of jobseeker's allowance for at least 390 days. In addition, a person must have been in receipt of a higher jobseeker's payment rate than the appropriate part-time job incentive supplement payable. The part-time job incentive supplement rate is €119 per week for a single person and €193.90 per week where an individual was getting an increase for a qualified adult. There is no increase for qualified children.
I recently sought and received special sanction from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to extend the part time job incentive scheme to customers who have exited the one parent family payment due to the scheme reforms. This sanction is specifically for former one-parent family payment recipients whose youngest child is aged 14 or over, who are working more than 3 days out of 7 and, as such would not be entitled to jobseeker’s allowance. This particular extension to the scheme will be available to participants for one year giving them time to increase their hours to 19 per week and qualify for the family income supplement.
Of the 25,500 customers who exited the one-parent family payment scheme in July 2015, my Department has recently written to 392 customers who, due to their specific work pattern and the age of their youngest child, may benefit financially from availing of the part time job incentive scheme. These customers have been invited to meet a case officer in their local Intreo Centre to discuss their situation.
