Galway County Council is the responsible authority for the maintenance and development of pier infrastructure on the Aran Islands. In July 2023, I gave approval to Galway County Council to issue a request for tender for the development of the Inis Oírr pier. Galway County Council is the contracting authority and is therefore responsible for all aspects of the procurement process. A steering committee consisting of representatives from my Department and Galway County Council meets on a regular basis, with the most r…

The Deputy has been on to me many times about this. We have spent a lot of time when it came to Inis Oírr. They carried out simulation exercises and they did that in Cork. It went on and on.

Sorry, Inis Meáin. At least they are finished that.

It seems to take an awfully long time to do anything with the islands. I will be straight with the Deputy. I would like to see it move a bit quicker. At least now stage one of the tender is over. We are at the second stage. Galway County Council has completed the evaluation. Now it will ask for the more detailed tenders to come in. That will take up to four months to assess. I will keep the pressure on. I know the Deputy will keep the pressure on me and she is right to do that because I will keep the pressure on ot…

The officials from my Department and Galway County Council meet on a monthly basis. The last meeting was on 20 February. I get updates, particularly when I have parliamentary questions. I will continue to maintain the pressure to make sure we move this on but Galway County Council has a role here as well. It needs to keep the momentum going too.

On Committee Stage in the Seanad, I brought forward three amendments, all of which relate to the extension of child benefit to 18-year-olds who are in full-time education or who have a disability. Of these, amendment No. 3 is the substantive amendment and will provide for the extension to take effect from 1 May rather than from 3 September. The other two amendments are technical amendments consequential to this. Child benefit is a monthly payment made to families with children up to the age of 16. Currently, the pa…

Amendment No. 1 is a technical amendment to the construction of the Bill, as provided for in section 1 of the Bill, and is consequential on amendment No. 2, which inserts a new Part 3 into the Act.  Amendment No. 2 is the substantive amendment, which provides for the earlier implementation of the extension of child benefit to 18-year-olds who are in full-time education and who have a disability.  I announced that in budget 2024.  It was planned to implement it from 1 September, but I have been able to bring that fo…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. In March 2022, the European Council adopted unanimously the implementing decision regarding the temporary protection directive, due to the mass influx of persons fleeing Ukraine as a consequence of the war. People arriving from Ukraine have been granted the status to avail of income supports from my Department under the directive. In October 2023, the EU Council agreed to extend the period of temporary protection to March 2025. Discussions on the options for when temporar…

I appreciate the point the Deputy is making. As he knows, I have introduced legislation which will make significant changes to the payments provided to new arrivals from Ukraine. Under that legislation, new arrivals who are staying in designated State-provided accommodation will receive €38.80 per week, which is equivalent to what people in direct provision receive. That legislation will be debated on Committee and Remaining Stages in the Seanad tomorrow. As the Deputy knows, there was broad support for it in the D…

To say to the Deputy again, the discussions at EU level have a way to go. As for my Department, whether during the pandemic, the response to the war in Ukraine or the various cost-of-living payments we have made, the Department of Social Protection can react and respond quickly and that is what it will do. We cannot predict the future here. We have to see how the discussions play out at EU level. If there was no temporary protection status then I would expect that the existing regime would apply. That means a perso…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The guardian’s payment, contributory, and guardian’s payment, non-contributory, are, respectively, social insurance and social assistance payments made to a person caring for a child where that child is defined as an orphan under the social welfare legislation. A child is considered an orphan if they are under 18, or 22 if in full-time education, and both parents are deceased; or one parent is either dead or unknown or has abandoned and failed to provide for the child and…

Yes. The means of the guardian, including any maintenance payments paid to him or her in respect of the child, are not assessed when establishing entitlement to the payment. It is a means-tested payment that is based on the means of the child. The Social Welfare and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2023 is currently before the Oireachtas and is expected to be enacted in the coming weeks. One of the main purposes of the Bill is to give legislative effect to changes to the social welfare system, which provid…

The only means we take account of under the guardian payment is that of the children themselves. In most cases the child has no means at all. We do not take account of the means or the income of the guardian. That does not come into play. The only case where this should arise is in respect of maintenance payments that are paid directly to the child. When the child maintenance legislation currently going through the Houses is enacted that will mean even maintenance payments paid directly to the child will now be dis…

The Deputy is saying that by virtue of the fact a child got anything it disqualifies him or her because it is not then deemed as parental abandonment.

I will speak to my officials about that. I am happy to engage with the Deputy because that is not the purpose here. We want to try to help people, especially if they have a guardian and especially now that I am removing the maintenance payment that a child may have got. That will not be taken into consideration. It is not about putting obstacles in anybody's way here. Taking on a child who has been abandoned, has no parents to look after it or whose parents are dead is a big undertaking for anybody. If the Deputy s…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. One of the key pension reform measures I introduced from January this year is to enhance State pension provision for people who have been caring for incapacitated dependants for 20 years or more. To date, 2,746 applications have been received from people requesting that a caring period be included on their social insurance contribution record. These are in respect of 2,113 individuals as some people register for more than one caring period. Some 2,275 of these applications…

We have the applications that are in now. We opened the scheme up for applications some time ago to give people a chance. I cannot say exactly how many will apply but the good news is, as the Deputy said, that none have been disallowed to date. I do not have the specific details of the different carers who have made applications but I can ask the officials if they can give me a further breakdown. I would be happy to supply that to the Deputy. We all value the work of our carers. My Department will spend over €1.7 b…

I just wanted to share that information with the Deputy. My apologies.

This scheme is for over 20 years. The home caring payment or credits are in place for periods of up to 20 years. We wanted to expand that and we came up with the scheme for longer-term carers. As with all schemes in my Department, there is always an appeals mechanism. The family carers register has been set up and we have worked very closely with Family Carers Ireland. In fairness to FCI, it has done a lot of work to create awareness around this scheme. I would hate to think we would be in a position where people w…

I thank Deputy Moynihan. Intreo centres manage the front-line delivery of the standard authentication framework environment - the long version of SAFE - registration. This includes registration for public service card issuing and renewal and the processing of applications for personal public service numbers. Demand for these services remains high. The public service card is a physical token that a person's identity has been authenticated by the Department. It means customers can access a range of public services ea…