The back to education allowance (BTEA) scheme is a second chance education opportunities scheme. As such its function is to facilitate persons who, earlier in their life, could not fully avail of educational opportunities now access further education. Qualification criteria are required to ensure that the allowance does not, of itself, become a factor for signing-on the Live Register in the first place.
Currently the period for which a person is required to be on a qualifying social welfare payment before accessing the third level option is 9 months (234 days); this was reduced from 12 months in 2010. Persons in receipt of a statutory redundancy payment may be in a position to access BTEA more quickly.
Periods spent on qualifying social welfare payments, which are not broken by more than 12 months (52 weeks), may be used in determining if an applicant satisfies the qualifying period criteria. I believe an official from my Department has been in contact with you in relation to the specific query attached to your question.