Vol. 509 No. 5
160 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Education and Science if his attention has been drawn to concerns that, whereas FÁS trainees were granted an increase of £25 per week in allowances with effect from 19 April 1999, this increase has been paid only to VTOS participants from 6 September 1999; if he will consider retrospective application of the VTOS increase to eliminate this anomaly; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The extra training allowance of £25 per week has been introduced as an incentive to encourage greater participation of the long-term unemployed in education and training programmes and has been applied to long-term unemployed participants on VTOS, Youthreach and senior traveller training programmes with effect from 1 September 1999. The application of the measure retrospectively would have no impact on participation, and it is not, therefore, proposed to pay arrears of the allowance.
