I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The community welfare service of my Department delivers the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is the safety net within the overall social welfare system. The scheme provides assistance to eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their needs and those of their dependants. The Deputy can be assured that I am focused on the delivery of crucial community welfare services to meet the challenges and needs of customers throughout the country. …

The increased back-office support in place across the greater Dublin area and in counties Kildare and Wicklow has been found to have improved the service to customers, especially at times of particular pressure such as during periods of staff absence due to the Covid pandemic. It ensures that a swift response is available to customers, resulting in significant decreases in the time waiting for a claim to be paid regardless of the prevailing circumstances in place. It is vital that the community welfare service is e…

Intreo offices are also providing these services. The Deputy is asking specifically about contracts with the HSE. I cannot give him that answer because I do not have it. I am happy that my officials can write to him on it. We have all changed the way we do business since Covid. People have been working remotely. The officials in my Department and particularly community welfare officers have found that some people find it more easy to pick up the phone and make that call. They do not have to make a trip. They can ma…

I thank the Deputy for raising this question. Before the introduction of temporary public health measures in March 2020, the default payment method for jobseekers was cash collection at a post office. Nevertheless, one in four jobseeker payments was still paid into customers' bank accounts. These include those in receipt of a jobseeker's payment upon reaching the age of 62 years and who are given options as regards payment method. When health restrictions were introduced in 2020, all jobseekers were given the optio…

All we announced last week was simply a return to the jobseeker's payment system that had always been in place before the pandemic whereby people collected their payments at post offices. This is about supporting our post office network. Post offices are an integral part of communities across the country. I have met the Irish Postmasters' Union and An Post. They were clear that the loss of footfall relating to these payments was having a severe impact on rural and urban post offices. Deputies on all sides of the Ho…

If people are immunocompromised and have genuine concerns, I ask that they contact their local Intreo offices. At the end of the day, we are here to help. What we are doing with this is putting things back the way they were prior to Covid. As the Minister for Rural and Community Development, I want to support post offices and our rural towns and villages. We want to look at ways of putting new services in place. The Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, has responsibility for post offices but we all have a responsibi…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important question. The programme for Government commits the Government to acting to reform our child maintenance system and addressing key issues such as calculation, facilitation and enforcement, guided by international best practice and in light of the findings of the child maintenance review group's report. In line with this commitment, the Government established a child maintenance review group to examine certain issues in respect of child maintenance. The group is chaired b…

We are absolutely on the one page on this; I agree with the Deputy. There is nothing worse than what she has described. I saw the problem myself when I worked in the credit union and, indeed, the bank. Whenever a lone parent, who was usually a woman, got a court order, it was a case of a payment being made one week and missed for the next couple, followed by another payment. It was terribly frustrating. The work of the review group is important. It did ask for a bit of extra time. The matter is complex. A lot of wo…

At the minute, the income from maintenance payments is assessed as means. In most cases, 50% of the person's weekly maintenance payment is assessed. That is half of it. There is a further disregard of €95.23 per week, with the balance of any maintenance being assessed at 50%. I take the Deputy's point but the matter will be considered in the review. It is best to await the report because I am aware that the issues I have asked the group to consider are quite detailed and complex. I am waiting to see what the report…

The report of the Commission on Pensions was published on 7 October 2021. It established that the current State pension system is not sustainable and that changes are needed. The report set out a wide range of recommendations in relation to the State pension system and social insurance fund, including PRSI base broadening measures. In the interests of older people and future generations of older people, the Government intends to consider the comprehensive and far-reaching recommendations in the commission's report …

There is a process, and I have outlined what is still to happen in that regard. The Deputy will appreciate that I am not in a position to stand here today and tell the Deputy which recommendations the Government will accept or otherwise. The discussions will continue over the coming weeks and months. The plan is that the Government will outline its full response to the commission's recommendations by the end of March. I appreciate that there are concerns, but let us not be in any doubt that there are no easy option…

Actually, there was a broad range of people on the commission, including a representative of Age Action or Age Friendly Ireland. I cannot remember off the top of my head which organisation was represented. It was either Age Action or Age Friendly Ireland. There were a lot of experts on the commission. As the Deputy will be aware, Ms Josephine Feehily headed up the commission. We included a broad range of people. When I announced the members of the commission it was broadly welcomed by everybody that there was a goo…

My Department provides a comprehensive package of carers' income supports, including the carer's allowance, carer's benefit, domiciliary care allowance and the carer's support grant. Combined spending on these payments to carers in 2022 is estimated to exceed €1.5 billion. There are currently 2,976 recipients of carer's allowance in County Mayo. The Minister for Health has confirmed the payment of a Covid recognition payment, ring-fenced to certain workers ordinarily on-site in Covid-19-exposed healthcare environme…

The Deputy is correct. Carers do incredible work; I accept that. I meet them in my constituency. We help them fill out the forms and we help them to get the benefits, and all those things. I am the first Minister in 14 years to do anything about the means test for the carer's allowance. It was an issue that I was very passionate about. That change means that all carers currently on a reduced rate of payment will see their payment increase from next June. It will also mean that tens of thousands more carers, who did…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The Government is committed to supporting households to control and meet energy costs through a combination of monetary supports as well as investment to improve the energy efficiency of the housing stock. The household benefits package comprises the electricity or gas allowance and the free television licence, and is just one of a range of supports my Department provides to assist people with their fuel costs. My Department will spend approximately €273 million this year …

I thank the Deputy. He will appreciate that budget 2022 delivered the biggest social welfare budget package in 14 years.

I provided the across-the-board increases and, in addition, targeted measures to support the most vulnerable, based on recommendations by the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice. The budget increased the fuel allowance, the living-alone allowance and the qualified child payment. Of course, we are considering this issue as a Government. Despite what some people say, we are not removed from reality. We see what is happening on the ground and we know the cost of living has gone up. I know people are struggling t…

I understand that old people living alone in particular have additional costs because they only have one income coming in. I accept that. That is why in the past two years since becoming Minister for Social Protection I have increased the living-alone allowance. I have always been of the opinion that it takes the same amount of fuel to heat a house for two people as it does for one person. It is something of which I am very conscious. As I stated, the Government will look at this issue. It is like everything else; …

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. The Government sees the post office network as a key piece of the financial and social infrastructure of the country. I have seen at first-hand the value of post offices in towns and villages throughout the country and the essential service they provide to people young and old. Throughout the pandemic, post offices stayed open and continued working under very difficult conditions. Indeed, many of them are part of a shop and many of those shopkeepers stepped up t…

I thank the Deputy. It was a pleasure to visit his constituency. There are great things happening in Cork. I know he is absolutely committed to his local post offices. He has raised with me previously the need to maintain services there. I was delighted to be able to return the jobseeker's payment to post offices. I met An Post and the Irish Postmasters' Union and spoke to them on this issue, as did the Deputy. This is a service they wanted to bring back because it is about footfall, getting people into towns and v…