I thank the Deputy. It is important to say we are offering to people who want to take up the offer training and measures to help them get back to work or retrain to go to a new job and they can take it up on a voluntary basis. Some people may want to look at new careers and it is important that we give them all the support we can to help them to get back to work in due course. It is fair to say that not a single claim has been stopped for the reason that a person is not genuinely seeking work. The reason the clause…

I thank the Deputy. What we are doing is helping people to get back to work and we are giving them all the supports. In the July stimulus package, there was considerable investment in back to education and back to training, apprenticeships and measures to help people to get back to work. If there are specific issues, I am happy to look at them. The purpose is to allow people to reskill and upskill. We are working with people all of the time and we are going to write out to people in January. This is all being done …

Payment of the pandemic unemployment payment, or PUP, as it is known, has proved to be an extremely effective tool in responding to the economic impact of Covid-19 and in cushioning hundreds of thousands of individuals and families from sudden income shocks. Expenditure on the scheme has amounted to over €4.3 billion since its introduction in March. The scheme will remain in place until the end of March 2021 and, just last week, I announced that I had secured Government approval to keep the scheme open for new appl…

The issue of tax is a matter for the Department of Finance. We all know that if we earn over a certain amount of money, we are all liable to pay tax. As I understand it, that is the rule across the board. It is important to say we have paid out a considerable amount of money to support people through the pandemic unemployment payment. This week, we issued €130 million in arrears to 286,000 people. The Deputy will be aware that when the payment was brought in last March, some payments were not made because there was…

It has always been the case that if people earn over a certain income in any given tax year, they are liable for tax. That has always been the case and it is the case for the pandemic unemployment payment in the same way as for any other payment people receive. We have supported people. We have processed 1.5 million claims since last March and we have issued 13 million payments to 800,000 people. That is the equivalent of processing seven years’ worth of jobseeker applications in eight months. The total spend on PU…

Research consistently indicates that the provision of personal case-managed employment services to jobseekers is an effective method of supporting jobseekers to secure and sustain employment, while reducing welfare costs and enhancing social value to a society. In October, I announced that my Department agreed an extension with both JobPath contractors, as well as extending the contracts of other contracted employment service providers - the local employment services and job clubs - into 2021. These extensions are …

I thank the Deputy. I confirm that we have changed the rules. I have instructed my officials that no person should be referred to JobPath on more than two occasions, and practical steps are under way in my Department to implement that instruction. JobPath provides advice to people. It helps them to look at how they can apply for jobs. It prepares them and tries to identify jobs that suit them. The contractors are obliged to engage and provide this employment assistance with each client at least once every 20 workin…

To be clear, the JobPath scheme has been reviewed on a number of occasions. The OECD review showed that, overall, those who participate in JobPath have better employment outcomes and earnings than those who are not supported by JobPath. The total cost of JobPath services to date is €247.7 million. That is since 2015. The total number of people engaged to date is more than 280,000, giving a total cost per client of €873, and delivering 12 months of employment services for that cost. We are facing record unemployment…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The main income supports to carers provided by my Department are carer’s allowance, carer’s benefit and the carer’s support grant. Combined spending on the above payments to carers in 2020 is expected to exceed €1.3 billion. The carer’s support grant is an annual payment of €1,700 for each care recipient paid in a single lump sum with no requirement to satisfy a means test and it is not taxable. This is not available for any other group nor is there an equivalent payment f…

The Deputy will understand that one of the key roles of my Department is that of income support. We are charged with identifying where a person has an income support need and providing that income support. Carer's benefit is a non-means-tested payment for up to two years. It is available to people who meet the specified social insurance contribution requirements. In addition, a person can continue to work for up to 18.5 hours per week and still receive a carer's payment. That was increased in the 2020 budget. The s…

It is important to say that if those people who are caring and working lost their job due to the pandemic, they are entitled to get other payments such as the pandemic unemployment payment or the enhanced illness benefit if they are off sick. I know that many carers have sought the abolition of the means test. Removing the means test for carer's allowance would in effect create a new universal social protection scheme for those meeting the scheme's basic caring condition. Based on the total number of carers identif…

In budget 2019, it was announced that research would be commissioned into the cost of disability as a first step in reaching an in-depth understanding of this complex issue. While the issue has been considered before by Departments, and research has been undertaken in the past on the cost of disability in Ireland, many of the conceptual issues remain unresolved and the empirical analysis is based on data from the 1990s. It is hoped that this current research, when complete, will inform policy direction in relation …

The Indecon report will look at all the issues that have been raised and I hope and expect that it will address them. My Department is doing much to help people with disabilities. This year alone, we spent more than €4.7 billion across various payments, such as disability allowance, invalidity pension, carer's allowance, partial capacity benefit and blind pension, and that is to name but a few. We are supporting more and more people through these schemes. In 2010, there were 101,000 people on disability allowance. …

As I said, Indecon is working on the report at the minute and I expect it to come to me shortly. We will have to look at the report and we will act on the recommendations in it. The priority and the focus of the Department of Social Protection is to ensure that there is an income safety net for people so that they do not fall below the income safety net. As I said to Deputy Lowry on the issue of the grant, the Department of Health and the HSE also have a significant role to play. I know from my engagement with the …

I thank the Acting Chairman and the Deputy. Internationally and in Ireland, research consistently indicates that the provision of a personal advisory case management service to unemployed jobseekers is an effective method of supporting jobseekers to secure and sustain employment. JobPath is simply a mechanism through which this support is provided. It provides long-term unemployed jobseekers with access to an employment assistance and advice service for a period of 12 months. It is a payment-by -esults model with d…

I understand the average is €838 per person who sustains a job through JobPath. The Deputy asked whether a payment is received if a person is referred for a second or third time. I believe it is the case but I do not want to give the Deputy an incorrect answer. I will clarify the matter for her. JobPath is just one part of the jigsaw. We are also expanding the capacity of other contracted employment services, such as local employment services, job clubs and employability services. The contracts are also being exten…

The total number of people engaged in JobPath is more than 280,000, giving a total cost per client of €873, delivering 12 months of employment service since engagement. This cost compares favourably with the cost of the Intreo and local employment services and provides value for money for taxpayers. I want to be clear on that. The maximum number of times a person can be referred under JobPath will be two. One of the two companies delivering the JobPath service is a farmers' co-operative. It is not a commercial ente…

We are obviously engaging with people. People referred to the employment services are the long-term unemployed who have difficulty in getting work. They are referred to the services so they can get the help they need to identify suitable jobs. We do not actually provide them with jobs but we provide them with the assistance they need. We continue to engage with them regularly to try to provide the supports. Some of the supports needed to get people back to work are very specific and tailored. What we want to do is …

I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 and 11 together. The SAFE registration process, which involves the authentication of a person's identity in a face-to-face interview, is the normal method of processing an application for a personal public service number, PPSN. At the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, my Department temporarily suspended the SAFE registration process. This decision was taken in order to comply with HSE and World Health Organization public health guidelines. Although this suspension w…

I thank all the Deputies for raising this issue. It is something I am very aware of from my own constituency office. This week, 200 additional people have been moved into the section that works on PPS numbers. Deputies can understand that getting money in people's pockets in terms of the PUP was an absolute priority. Then people were depending on arrears to come. Some people were owed arrears, mainly because insufficient information had come in and we could not process the claims. Then we got the information, proce…