asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he has received representations from AONTAS, the National Association for Adult Education, concerning the difficulties that many people who are in receipt of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance may have in participating in adult education courses and programmes; if he intends to take any measures to alleviate these difficulties; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Adult Education Courses.
6.
I have received representations from AONTAS, the National Association for Adult Education on the question of participation in education courses and the effect on entitlement to unemployment payments.
Deputies will be aware of my concern to ensure that those in receipt of unemployment payments are encouraged to engage in constructive activities and to develop skills which will also assist them in gaining employment. I am very conscious that education plays a vital role in helping unemployed persons to improve their prospects, particularly so in the case of those who left the school system early. I am anxious to ensure that there is the greatest possible flexibility within the current legislation to allow persons who are unemployed to attend education courses while still retaining entitlement to unemployment payment.
The main criteria for entitlement to receipt of unemployment payments are that the person concerned be unemployed, available for and genuinely seeking work. The question of whether a person who participates in an educational course fulfils these conditions is a matter for decision by a deciding officer who must be satisfied that the degree of participation is not such as to remove the person from the labour market. In general, full time attendance at a school or college of education is not regarded as being consistent with being available for work, but claimants who engage in part-time courses would normally be eligible to continue to receive their unemployment payments.
My Department recently issued guidelines on the matter to local offices for the guidance of deciding officers. The guidelines seek to ensure that part-time education courses are not regarded as a barrier to continuing entitlement to unemployment payments. A copy of the guidelines is now being made available to AONTAS and if that body have any specific cases which are causing difficulties, I will be happy to have the matter examined.
I would also like to refer to the education opportunities scheme which allows unemployed persons over 25 years, who have been unemployed for at least a year, to return to school and complete a certificate type course with a view to improving their chances of securing employment. I have already told the House of my intention to extend this scheme nationwide and I will be announcing details shortly.
I thank the Minister for his response. It is particularly pleasing to hear that AONTAS will be issued with a copy of the guidelines he has forwarded to the deciding officers. Would he be disposed to allow Deputies have a copy of those guidelines for our own information? Has the Minister any proposals for making available to the public the guidelines which affect those genuinely seeking work? This seems to be a major bone of contention affecting claimants, whatever their circumstances at the moment.
I will place a copy of the guidelines in the Oireachtas Library.
This question is causing a great deal of confusion. I know many boys and girls who applied for social assistance. At the local offices they were asked if they were taking educational courses. They said they were taking such courses in the afternoons. They were then told they were not available for work. This is true. It would be interesting to know the number of young people in receipt of social welfare——
We must proceed by way of supplementary question.
Would the Minister clarify the position of young people in receipt of unemployment assistance? We all know parents are telling their children to give up these educational courses and to draw their unemployment assistance. Let us be very honest about this issue.
I have told the House the general parameters of the scheme. It will depend on the type of part time courses being taken. As I said, we have reissued the guidelines to all the exchanges so that they will be clearly aware of our intention in that regard. These people must be involved in genuine part time courses, otherwise we would be paying unemployment assistance to a very large number of people.
Arising from the Minister's very helpful reply to this question and from his helpful response to a previous debate on the meaning of availability for work, in so far as there are two parties to every decision before a deciding officer — the deciding officer and the applicant — would it not make sense to have an advertising campaign clarifying the new regulations and the Minister's guidelines interpreting the regulations on display in employment exchanges? Would he not agree that what we have at the moment is clarification by the Minister being somewhat arbitarily interpreted by deciding officers in different parts of the country?
We will be doing something about educational opportunities shortly and advertising it nationwide. In conjunction with that I will ensure that information on the part time arrangement are included and I will see about having notification of this information sent to the local exchanges.
Would the Minister consider making the new interpretation and literature relating thereto available to the unemployment centres in different parts of the country?
Any information we have will be made available to the centres.
Does the Minister appreciate that different interpretative patterns are being encountered in the exchanges? Will be accept that there is a need for him to reaffirm his views? Not seeking to anticipate everything in the regulations, I should like to ask the Minister if they include a definition of what is "part time"? For example, will half-a-day be considered as "part time"? Will the regulations define what is a course? Do I understand the Minister to say that some courses may not be considered productive or assisting in developing skills?
Ultimately, the decision is one for the deciding officers under the Act. We are increasing the flexibility and in doing so we have been extending the definitions. If the Deputy goes back a few years he will find that the definitions were much tighter. Generally speaking they have been extended. Short of defining each course I should like to tell the Deputy that the general intention is that people should participate in part time courses. In most cases people attend such courses because they want to improve themselves in some way and for that reason there should be no difficulty about them.
It will depend on the flexibility of the deciding officers.