Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On the personal development plan, I sometimes wonder whether these types of things are box-ticking exercises. Will the Department employ qualified persons to meet those moving into a transition to provide proper career analysis and carve out a career pathway for them?

As the witnesses are probably aware, I left the further education sector to become a Senator relatively recently. In my previous role, I was often greatly upset by the number of people with children who started further education courses in September before finding by late October, November or December that it was no longer possible to continue the course. The reason was that their courses will have had a start time of 9 a.m. and while they may have had a special arrangement under which they did not have to be present until 10 a.m. to allow them to drop children at school or whatever, they suddenly found they had fallen behind in subjects. The Department supported some excellent schemes in Finglas 15 or 20 years ago where the same programme ran three times per day to allow mothers or unemployed people to come together and agree to do either a morning, afternoon or evening session. I do not blame the Department for this problem because legislators must engage in joined up thinking to bring education and welfare closer together and provide the options required.

On the transition payment, if the purpose of the process is to upskill and train people, why is it not called a training allowance, which is a more user-friendly term for those who need education and training?

While I may have come across as a little abrasive in my earlier contribution, I should point out that departmental officials do a tremendous job in difficult circumstances dealing with difficult people who also face difficult circumstances. I am not knocking what the Department does but expressing a view based on the perspective of consumers who may feel somewhat threatened by the changes that are taking place. The point I was making earlier was how does one alleviate the threatening aspects of this change for consumers.