Vol. 400 No. 6
18 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Labour the reason FÁS will only pay training allowances to unemployed people who attend courses run by FÁS; and his views on whether such training allowances should be made available to people attending other courses, if these courses can be shown to be useful in terms of improving employability.
I take it that the Deputy's question addresses the possibility of making FÁS training allowances available to persons attending courses which are not organised or funded by FÁS.
As the Deputy is aware, FÁS is involved in the provision of an extremely wide range of training courses, both directly in its training centres and through external training. In addition FÁS is sufficiently flexible to be able to respond to changes in training requirements of individuals and firms.
With regard to training by bodies other than FÁS and CERT, it is open to such trainers to apply to FAS to be recognised as external training contractors, provided the courses are relevant to the training needs identified by FÁS and the participants are from the categories of persons to whom FÁS are directed to give priority. Such recognition would have the effect, indicated in the Deputy's question, of qualifying course participants for FÁS trainee allowances.
