Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe agus cuirim céad fáilte rompu. Is lá stairiúíl inniu é i ndáiríre agus tá an athas orm go bhfuil siad ar fad anseo. This is a very historic day and we have been deliberating for quite a while before we received our first petition. This is the culmination of a process of going through a number of petitions and it is very welcome to have all the stakeholders here because we see this committee as a potential forum for resolving policy issues and anomalies. Mr. Walshe will go down in history as the first petitioner to appear, so I congratulate him. Some people might find it daunting, but fair play to him, the officials, Ms O'Brien and Mr. Lynch.

We are trying to home in on the specific policy issues. Perhaps I am reading it in too simplistic a fashion but I am trying to bring this down to the fact that certain people in the system are entitled to claim €188 per week on jobseeker's benefit but they are not entitled to attend college while in receipt of that payment and are not eligible for the back to education allowance, which is the same monetary value per week and would enable them to do a course. The policy framework is much more complicated but it does not seem to make sense that we are keeping people out of education and leaving them on the dole when they have access to courses. Is it purely a policy issue? Could it be changed in a policy scenario and could we re-examine this so those people are not just left sitting on the dole? If they want to better themselves, as Mr. Walshe highlighted, could that be open to them? Are we biting off our noses to spite our faces? Are we getting caught up in red tape? That is why we were interested in this scenario.

We need to do everything we can to help people in this scenario, whether long-term or short-term unemployed, trying to get back to work, better themselves and retrain themselves. Can the guidelines be tweaked, without any extra expense to the Exchequer, so that we can facilitate people who find themselves in this situation? Perhaps the Department could respond or Ms O'Brien or Mr. Lynch might give us an insight into the INOU's reading of that situation.