Officials from the Department are in regular communication with island representative groups, such as Comhdháil Oiléain na hÉireann, and it is intended that this practice will continue. Department representatives attended the Irish Local Development Network, ILDN, council meeting, which was attended by Comhar na nOileán, on 2 September. Department representatives met with the chair and the CEO of Comhar na nOileán on 25 October. There has been engagement between my officials and the islanders. I am particularly con…

I thank the Deputies for raising their concerns. Alignment with the counties benefits some islands and there is no doubt about that. I was in Árainn Mhór and the communities there benefited not only from a roads programme but also from development under rural regeneration funding that came through, and was driven by, the local authority in Donegal. There is a fabulous theatre on the shore. That would not have happened without Donegal County Council driving the project forward and making it happen. Certain stakehold…

May I come in? I thank my colleagues on the Opposition benches and wish everybody a happy Christmas. We will see what happens on Saturday. I thank the members of the Opposition. We have had good, constructive debates on issues relating to the Departments of Social Protection and Rural and Community Development. I thank them.

I do not propose to accept the amendment but I get what the Senator is saying. People coming from abroad are not excluded from applying for carer's allowance if they meet the habitual residency condition. It applies across the board. It is a requirement for eligibility for means-tested social assistance payments and child benefits. It is aimed at restricting access to such payments by people who have little or no established connection with Ireland. The habitual residency clause is provided for in Irish social welf…

It all depends on the various different cases when it comes to the habitual residency clause because some people may have lived in the country before or they may have been out only a short time and be back. I would say to people to submit an application. The best thing that anybody can do is just apply.

I do not propose to accept the amendment. The carer's allowance is a qualifying payment for access to both the back to education allowance and the back to work enterprise allowance. The back to education allowance is a second-chance educational opportunity scheme. It supports certain social welfare recipients to continue to receive a payment while pursuing an approved full-time education course that leads to a higher qualification than that already held. Participants must continue to maintain eligibility to an unde…

To clarify, we give credits for home caring periods. In the new pension proposals, anyone who cares long-term, which is more than 20 years, will be taken into account as credits for the person's contributory pension. We have it for the short term and for the long term as well.

If the Senator does not press the amendment, I will agree to do this report. Fuel allowance is paid to social welfare recipients such as pensioners, people with disabilities, lone parents and long-term unemployed people in recognition of their long-term financial dependence on their social welfare payment for all or most of their income. People on long-term payments are unlikely to have additional resources of their own and are more vulnerable to poverty, including energy poverty. It is for this reason the Departme…

I will speak to amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 12, which have been grouped together. The Department partly funds the excellent, detailed work of the Vincentian MESL Research Centre and has used this research as a key input into consideration of budget options in recent years. I value the insights this research provides. The Vincentian MESL Research Centre at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul publishes an annual update which already examines the issues raised by the Senator, namely, income adequacy for various household …

I do not propose to accept this amendment. I would like to make the general point that legislation is not the appropriate place for seeking reports. I accept, however, that this is an opportunity for the Senator to raise these matters and discuss them with me. I have made the point about including in primary legislation, particularly legislation as complex as the Social Welfare Acts, commitments to producing reports. I have already committed to initiating a wide-ranging review of means testing in the Department nex…

As I said earlier, assessing the household means, in other words, the means of the entire household, is the best way of targeting income supports where they are most needed. I am doing a full review of it. We are happy to look at it on an individualised basis as well and can certainly do that when we are doing the review. We are, as I said, open to looking at it and seeing how we can perhaps do things better.

I thank the Senator. As she knows, I have already committed to initiating a wide-ranging review of means testing in the Department next year. I take on board her point about somebody with a disability who wants to bring somebody in to live with them. We can consider those things.

I thank the Senator. I do not propose to accept this amendment because I am already addressing the two issues she is requesting a report on. As the Senator is aware, the report of the child maintenance review group was published on 16 November. The Government established that group in 2020 to examine several issues regarding child maintenance in Ireland. The terms of reference were to consider and report on the current treatment within the Department of Social Protection of child maintenance payments, the current p…

I do not propose to accept the amendment. The €12 increase to the weekly rate of social welfare payments from January 2023 supports recipients across all weekly schemes, including pensioners and those of working age. It also includes a proportionate increase for adult dependants which means that the basic increase for a two-adult household will be between €20 and €22.80 per week. Exceptionally, this year, this significant rate increase has been accompanied by a wide range of additional lump sum payments paid in the…

I do not propose to accept this amendment. The jobseeker’s transitional payment can be paid until a lone parent’s youngest child turns 14. The big thing about that payment is that people do not have to be looking for work. To extend eligibility for the payment until the youngest child turns 18 would be contrary to the Government’s policy goal of tackling long-term social welfare dependency and its associated poverty risks. We all know the route out of poverty is to get a job. Increasing the age of the children for …

They actually can take up part-time work if they wish, as I understand it.

I can understand that some people might have childcare issues and want to be home when their children come home from school and so forth. It is about trying to strike the balance. In fairness to the staff in the Intreo office in the job activation sections they take a practical approach to this. It is a tight labour market at the moment. If we can find that balance where we can allow people to get back into work and at the same time take account of their family caring duties, which are obviously greater for single …

I thank the Senators for raising this issue. Everything they have said here is perfectly true. If someone who is a class A contributor comes into this House, they suddenly have nothing. The number of years they spend here will have an impact on their contributory pension, which they may have paid for before they came into the House from whatever form of employment they may have been in. I do not propose to accept this amendment for the simple reason that this legislation, as I said earlier, is not the appropriate v…

I am very pleased to bring this year's Social Welfare Bill to Seanad Éireann. The purpose of the Bill is to give legislative effect to the comprehensive set of social protection measures announced on budget day. The Government has been listening to people throughout the country and is acutely aware of the financial pressures that many in our communities are facing. I am particularly glad that this year's Christmas bonus will be extended to people on long-term illness benefit for the first time. The vast majority of…

I thank Senators for their contributions this evening. In the past couple of years this State has had to deal with a pandemic, an energy shock, rising inflation and a war on our continent. Despite this, employment is now higher than it was before the pandemic and the Government has delivered the highest social protection budget in the 100 year history of the State. I will now respond to some of the issues raised by Senators during the course of this debate. Senators Craughwell and Burke raised the issue of class K …