I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. My Department is finalising a request for tender with the aim of establishing new local employment-type services in areas of the State where they do not currently operate. I expect this tender to issue shortly and the details of the procurement will be outlined in the published request for tender. The forthcoming procurement process will not impact the contracts of existing providers in other areas. I expect the tender will prove attractive to local community-based organi…

I agree that fantastic work is being done by local employment service providers across the country. The local employment service in my county of Monaghan is led by Mr. Francis McCarron, who does good work helping people with career guidance, CV and interview preparation, and upskilling and training supports. This is the case in many local employment services and I assure the Deputy that I recognise the great work being carried out by many of our local employment service providers. As Minister, however, I must follo…

That report will be published in due course. Local employment services form only one part of this jigsaw. There are a number of aspects, for example, the Intreo offices, where I have increased the number of staff to help people locate jobs. Unfortunately, many people will not get their jobs back when the economy reopens fully. We want to help them find other jobs. A number of approaches to this work are being taken, including local employment services, JobPath and Intreo. Above all, we do not want to reduce any of …

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The original purpose of the mortgage interest supplement scheme was to provide short-term support to eligible people who, due to temporary unemployment or loss of earnings, were unable to meet their mortgage interest repayments in respect of a house that was their sole place of residence. The 2011 interdepartmental mortgage arrears working group report, known as the Keane report, identified mortgage interest supplement as an inappropriate long-term support. The central ten…

Abhaile is the national mortgage arrears resolution service. It is provided free of charge to insolvent borrowers who are at risk of losing their home due to mortgage arrears. Abhaile is focused on providing expert financial and legal advice and assistance to borrowers to identify and put in place solutions to their arrears and, wherever possible, enable them to remain in their home. From the inception of Abhaile in mid-2016 through to December 2019, 17,640 individual borrowers in mortgage arrears, or almost 15,000…

The Abhaile programme has worked well. At the end of December 2019, nearly 35% of the 17,640 borrowers who engaged with Abhaile financial advice either had a solution in place or were on trial. A further 47%, or 8,317 borrowers, were still in their homes and receiving ongoing support from their Abhaile financial adviser to get a solution in place. I know the Deputy will agree with me that anybody in any financial difficulty should go to MABS. It provides a wonderful service in giving people support and helping them…

The PUP is available to employees and self-employed persons who lost employment due to the Covid-19 crisis. To date, expenditure on the scheme is approximately €7.5 billion, which demonstrates the Government's absolute commitment to those affected by the crisis. As restrictions are eased further over the coming weeks and months, I expect people will be in a position to close their PUP claims as their employers reopen and they return to work. The experience to date is that people returned to work when restrictions w…

I thank the Deputy for her comments regarding the efforts of staff in social protection offices the length and breadth of the country. They have done magnificent work. We sometimes take things for granted when they run smoothly and payments are there every week, but there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes every day to make sure that happens. The PUP continues to be available at its current rates and the scheme remains open for applications until the end of June. The Government will set out the future …

Those who are on the PUP continue to be on it and, as I said, it remains open to new entrants until the end of June. Recipients know that if they are on the PUP, they will continue on that payment. The Government has not been found wanting in supporting people during this pandemic. Over €7.6 billion has been spent on the PUP to date, over 23 million individual payments have been issued, more than 850,000 people have received support under the scheme, and staff in my Department have answered over 10 million phone ca…

I thank Deputy Nolan for raising this issue. JobPath provides employment assistance and advice to the long-term unemployed on behalf of my Department. The current JobPath contracts were due to expire at the end of last year. Last October, however, in addition to contract renewals to the local employment services, job clubs and EmployAbility, I announced an extension of referrals to the JobPath service for a further 12 months until the end of 2021. While new referrals will cease at the end of December, there will be…

To be clear, JobPath is not a job placement service. The providers are contracted to provide employment assistance and to support jobseekers. It is important to say that a review of JobPath has been carried out and that the OECD evaluation, which is completely independent, showed that, overall, those who participate on JobPath have better employment outcomes and earnings than those who are not supported by JobPath. Customer satisfaction is independently assessed by regular surveys and remains high. The number of co…

The figures the Deputy refers to relate to services provided to more than 295,000 jobseekers. As I said, their success rate in getting and keeping jobs is better than with some of the other services. Now is not the time to cut employment support services of any kind. We face record unemployment as a result of the pandemic. There are currently 363,000 people on the PUP and another 177,000 on the live register. There are a number of different approaches to this. There are the local employment services, JobPath and th…

The measures taken by this and previous Governments ensure that social welfare payment rates in Ireland are among the highest in Europe and considerably higher than in the UK. Social transfers contribute very significantly to reducing poverty rates in Ireland. According to the Central Statistics Office, in the absence of social transfers and pension income, the at-risk-of-poverty rate would be 41.4%. After social transfers, the rate is 12.8%. This is a poverty reduction effect of 68.5% for all social transfers and …

In last year's budget, my priority was to target resources at the most vulnerable, which was why we increased the qualified child payments, the living alone allowance and the fuel allowance as well as making changes to the one-parent family payment. I also extended the hot school meals programme to an additional 35,000 children with 189 new schools benefiting. This year's budget will be framed as we continue, we hope, to emerge from the pandemic. The total expenditure on all Covid supports to date is more than €28 …

I will certainly be making the case to my colleagues in government for increased expenditure on social protection so that we can build on the progress we made last year. We will face several competing demands, but I will certainly make the case. The Deputy will appreciate it is only May and I cannot give her commitments on what will be in the budget at this stage. However, the good work carried out by the Vincentian Partnership will be central again this year when making our decisions. The ESRI report, published la…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, was introduced on 13 March 2020 in response to the Covid-19 crisis. Since its introduction, in excess of 23 million payments have been made, with 14.7 million payments made in 2020 and 8.4 million payments in the first four months of 2021. Last week, my Department issued payments to more than 376,000 people on the pandemic unemployment payment. This represents a decrease of 8,500 on the previous week. The first payments on PUP were …

Yes, a Cheann Comhairle, I definitely live in Monaghan but I know a fair bit of Cavan as well. I have many family members from County Cavan. As I believe the Deputy will accept, we have been able to support people with the PUP and the scale of support provided under this payment is unprecedented in the history of the State. I acknowledge the wonderful work of the staff of my Department. While we are here working late this evening, they worked late on many evenings to ensure those payments were made to people and th…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue because it has been brought to my attention by his colleagues, the Ministers of State, Deputies English and Byrne. I have asked my officials to look at this case and they have been in direct contact with the school today. We are trying to find a solution. I understand the circumstances and we are looking at it.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 76, 78, 79, 83, 86, 87, 102, 113, 116, 118, 127, 142 and 558 together. I thank the Deputies for raising this important issue. As the Deputies are aware, the pandemic unemployment payment is an income support provided for employees and the self-employed who were in employment on or after 13 March 2020 and who lost employment as a direct consequence of the public health restrictions to address the adverse health outcomes from the Covid-19 pandemic. The scheme is scheduled to remain op…

I thank the Deputies for raising these very important issues. The Government has not been found wanting in terms of supporting people during the pandemic. A sum of €7.6 billion has been spent on the PUP to date, with 23 million individual payments made and more than 850,000 people having received support. As regards the future of the PUP, I am working with my colleagues in government, namely, the Ministers for Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance, the Taoiseach and the Cabinet committee, on the issue. We plan …