Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 5 November 2013
561. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Social Protection the support available from her Department to a person in receipt of jobseeker's allowance who wishes to retrain but does not qualify for the back to education allowance; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46772/13]
View answerGiven the scale of the unemployment crisis, the key objective of activation policy and labour market initiatives is to offer assistance to those most in need of support in securing work and achieving financial self-sufficiency. This policy objective prioritises scarce resources to those in receipt of qualifying welfare payments. Accordingly the employment services and schemes provided by the Department are focused in the first instance on this cohort of unemployed people. In this context, the major elements of the Government’s response are set out in the Pathways to Work policy which is aimed at ensuring that as many as possible of the re-training programmes are filled by people who have been on the Live Register who are either unemployed or at high risk of long-term unemployment. The Government must also take account of the fact that many people who sign on to the Live Register will exit it again within a short-time frame, without any recourse to employment schemes or intensive activation measures. For example, in 2012, of those who signed on to the Live Register, 43% had left the Register within 3 months of first signing on. Given these high exit rates, it is appropriate to apply a qualifying duration on the Live Register as a criterion to allocate scarce resources, including places on employment and training/educational schemes, to those most in need of support.
Of course, some services (for example assistance with job-search activities, use of online job search tools, participation in part-time/evening and on-line training courses) are available to all unemployed persons, regardless of their duration of unemployment, if they register with the Department’s employment services offices.
Without knowing the specific reason why a person is not eligible for Back to Education Allowance it is not possible to say what other re-training options, if any, are available over and above those available to all unemployed persons.
