I thank Deputy O'Shea for his question. The total number of recipients of jobseeker's payments has remained generally steady over the last 12 months in both Cork and Limerick. In Cork, it varied between 11,700 and 13,700 over the year, while in Limerick, it varied between 5,200 and 6,000. At the end of January 2026, in Cork, there were approximately 12,100 recipients of jobseeker's payments. Figures were broadly the same in January 2025, with around 12,100 recipients. In Limerick, there were 5,800 recipients of job…

I thank the Deputy and join him in acknowledging the superb work being done by our Intreo teams across the country. We will have work and skills events around the country next week. I encourage every Deputy to help to promote those events and to attend the events to see how they work. We are more than happy to show them. We have already had a good discussion this morning about youth employment and the work we are doing with Intreo, and the tailored, individualised employment support that Intreo provides. As the Dep…

We will continue to work on activation. I am focused on targeted activation. It is important that we give people the opportunity to remain connected and qualified for the labour market. It is something I am very focused on doing, and I thank our Intreo colleagues. In relation to the branch office managers, as the Deputy knows, we have 55 social welfare branch offices at various locations, including 24 in the southern region, 11 in the northern region, 17 in the midlands and west region and three in the eastern regi…

I thank Deputy McGrath for raising this issue. As he knows, the primary weekly social welfare payments are intended to enable recipients to meet basic day-to-day income needs. In addition to those primary payments, we also provide a range of other payments that are considered secondary in nature. The living alone allowance is one of those secondary payments. It is not a scheme or stand-alone payment but rather a supplement to certain primary social protection payments for those who are in receipt of those payments …

We are certainly conscious from our day-to-day experience with our own families, but also from our constituencies, that the cost and the cliff for those living alone, particularly those who have suffered bereavement or separation, is particularly tight. We are very conscious of that. That is why there has been such a big increase in it since 2019. I also want to ensure that people are aware there are other supports available that they may not be aware of in terms of the household benefits package and the fuel allow…

I will certainly take on board the Deputy's request. He is definitely in early but there were other Deputies even in ahead of him this morning for budget 2027 priorities. I will point out in the context of budget 2026, however, that €12 billion has been allocated for pension payments. Many people who are living alone are predominantly pensioners. That €12 billion is an increase of just over €700 million from the 2025 Revised Estimates. The investment in pensions, as we discussed at committee yesterday, is nearly 42…

I thank the Deputy. The Government recognises the significant additional costs that disabled people are facing in their daily lives. We are committed to improving outcomes for disabled people by reducing more permanent measures. The programme for Government includes a range of commitments to support disabled people, including a commitment to introducing a permanent annual cost-of-disability support payment. In addition, under the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030, which was developed with…

I want the consultation to be as broad as possible. As I outlined to Deputy Hayes earlier, we met the disability consultative forum in my Department yesterday around the consultation. We are open to further suggestions as to how to make it more accessible and to make people engage with it more. There is a guidance document to provoke discussion. We are open to people’s ideas in relation to this matter. We had some good feedback yesterday on what it should look like and on administration issues and assessment. We wa…

We have spoken extensively about the process this morning. I hope people engage with it. The Deputy is right that there are additional supports available through the community welfare system. Separately, I will be hosting a briefing next Wednesday in the audio visual room with community welfare officers to outline the supports available from our section. They will also be available in the coffee dock in Leinster House 2000 to meet Deputies who cannot make it to the audiovisual room. There has been a lot of feedback…

We had a very extensive discussion on this earlier. I commend the education committee on the work it has done in respect of this matter. That work has been very considered and well thought out, and I look forward to the committee's report. As the Deputy said, the objective is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of their education. The programme is an important component to encourage school attendance, extra educational achievement and participation in school. Und…

By funding and appointing a dietician rather than listening to all sorts of opinions, we will obtain an informed opinion. The dietician’s first job was to look at a paper-based exercise and look at the menus. They are now getting out to schools with colleagues from the Department of social protection. They are also developing an auditing tool to allow the process to be more efficient and will allow us to get the nutritional standards. With all that information I will engage. I am happy enough that we are on the rig…

Regarding Deputy Hayes's question first, the standards are available. They are published on gov.ie . I want to get a full understanding of that when I get the full report. I am not into naming and shaming. We will absolutely publish the full report and I look forward to discussing it not just at the social protection committee but also at the education committee. On Deputy O'Rourke's questions, the holiday meals school pilot this year was very important. We do that in partnership with the Department of education. I…

-----around secondary schools as well. My focus now is to bed down those nutritional standards and ensure we have good compliance with those standards so a scheme as important as this is doing what it is designed to do in terms of nutrition and supporting education.

I thank the Deputy for this question. The Government acknowledges the very valuable role that family carers play and we are fully committed to supporting carers in that role. The commitment is recognised in the programme for Government and in budget changes for 2026 where the earnings limit for carer’s benefit will increase from €625 to €1,000 after tax from July, there will be a €10 increase in the weekly rate of carer’s benefit, and carer's benefit will be made available to the self-employed for the first time. A…

I am happy to engage with the Deputy around the specific instances. Subsequently, we can examine those in more detail. As I said, we have made substantial increases to the means assessment and that will continue from 1 July this year. We have also increased the carer's benefit rate by €51 over the past five years. Previously, this was done by the then Minister, Heather Humphreys, and I have continued that. The changes in the income limits from €625, which started from July, will continue to increase in 2026. On the…

Certainly, we will engage on that. There are also issues being brought to my attention around teachers who are job-sharing and that complicate the Deputy's scenario even more. Those who are working fewer than 18.5 hours may qualify for carer's allowance, which would be subject to the means test and to other eligibility requirements. If the Deputy wants to send me the details, we will engage with him around it. Any changes to the carer's benefit or to the qualifying conditions in terms of hours or means obviously ha…

The programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce pay-related parent's benefit and explore other payments where a similar model could be applied. Parent's benefit provides nine weeks paid leave to each parent during the first two years of a child’s life or following adoption. This leave can be taken in blocks of a minimum of one week up to a maximum of nine weeks. A pay-related model that moves away from flat rates of payment would provide a stronger financial cushion to new parents, as the Deputy has…

The Deputy has definitely outlined a very strong and fair case. That is why we have the programme for Government commitment and why I will be launching the consultation on this in autumn. We are certainly an outlier among EU member states in paying a flat rate for all family leave benefits. That needs to be looked at. However, we provide one of the most generous durations of maternity leave in terms of 26 paid weeks and 16 unpaid weeks. On the figures, the weekly rate has gone from €245 in 2019 to €299 in 2026. In …

I am in full agreement with the Deputy. She has made a very strong case. That is why we will start that consultation and begin work on addressing all of the issues she correctly outlined. They all stand up, and we have an awful lot of work to do in this space. That is why we have that commitment to introduce pay-related benefit for parents, which would address many of the challenges the Deputy highlighted as well

As the Deputy knows, the programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce the automatic enrolment, AE, retirement savings system. The aim of AE was to address the pension coverage gap that exists in Ireland and to provide workers with greater comfort and security regarding their retirement income. The new system, known as My Future Fund, commenced on 1 January. The administration fee associated with My Future Fund was prescribed in regulations, following consultation with the CEO of the National Automati…