Mr. Oliver Egan:

I thank the committee for inviting me to address it. I will outline the background the schemes and the issues which we are currently addressing before considering Mr. Walshe's case and the general issues arising.

The Department of Social Protection provides a broad range of training and education schemes to assist jobseekers in their efforts to return to employment. While the Department of Education and Skills has the lead role in supporting learners, the Department of Social Protection supports individuals returning to education primarily through the back to education programme, which consists of the back to education allowance, the part-time education option and the education, training and development option. The back to education allowance is a broadly targeted non-statutory second chance education opportunity scheme for eligible individuals on certain social welfare payments who desire to participate in full-time education. In 2012 we conducted a high level review of employment supports, followed by a stakeholders' conference earlier this year to consider a number of recommendations. The report produced at that time included an analysis of the relevant back to education data of those originating from live register payments which indicated that 60% of those who completed or dropped out of a course under the allowance at the end of the 2010-11 academic year had returned to the live register by September 2012. In preparing for this meeting we calculated that the figure for the previous two years was approximately 58%.

Like many other schemes, the back to education allowance is undergoing a process of reform, as is evident in the changes introduced in recent budgets and the recommendations we are now making. Ms Rogers touched on some of the salient recommendations from the review. While the three month eligibility period for second level courses should be retained, we recommended that it should apply to those pursuing second chance education leading to a qualification at leaving certificate level or lower. Post-leaving certificate and further education courses should remain subject to the nine month eligibility period. We suggest that the general minimum age requirement for entry to the back to education allowance should be raised from 21 years to 23 years. For those pursuing second chance education leading to a qualification at leaving certificate level or lower, the age requirement should remain at 21 years. In line with other activation schemes, the back to education jobseeker's participants should establish an underlying entitlement to jobseeker's allowance prior to qualification. Those who complete a course and wish to progress to a higher level course should be required to qualify for the back to education by establishing an entitlement to social welfare payments. The practice of freezing jobseeker's benefit for those on the back to education allowance should be discontinued. The practice of maximising payments for participants on means reduced payments should be discontinued and only the underlying social welfare entitlements should be paid to participants where an entitlement exists. As case management and client profiling are developed, the Department should actively exercise discretion on what clients can access under the back to education allowance. This would involve assessing the likely contribution courses would make to clients' employment chances given their backgrounds and local and national labour market conditions. In this context and with a view to moving to more targeted schemes, attendance on shorter term, accelerated and conversion courses, which are more suitable to certain cohorts, could be delivered.

In respect of Mr. Walshe's case, currently the period for which a person is required to be on a qualifying social welfare payment such as jobseeker's payment before accessing a second level option is three months, or 78 days, or nine months, or 234 days, in the case of third level options. The latter was reduced from 12 months in 2010. Mr. Walshe was refused a back to education allowance on 25 August.