Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This is an important issue. As I mentioned in private session, either I know this man or know others like him. It is a rather ridiculous anomaly whereby someone who has completed one year in third level education seeks to continue the course but because he is not unemployed for long enough, he is forced back into unemployment and cannot then continue his education in UCD. He is being forced into unemployment when he wants to get out of it and it is costing the State exactly the same amount of money. It is a matter of the criteria. This does not even represent a further burden on the State. This anomaly is rather widespread.

The justification provided by the Minister, that if one were to reduce the amount of time someone has to be unemployed to get the back-to-education allowance it would lead to great numbers of people signing on simply to get the allowance, does not stand up. Frankly, it is ridiculous when there is a general view, expressed by the Government among others, that we should encourage people who are unemployed to upskill, re-educate themselves and get back into the workforce. Here is someone who has been informed that he has not been unemployed long enough and he should stay unemployed and dependent on State benefits when he has no wish to be and he need not be. We should address this issue seriously because it has wider ramifications beyond the petitioner in question.