Mr. John McKeon:

This is ultimately a policy decision for Government but certainly, if I was advising Government, I would say to look at the evidence from our back to education allowance evaluation, where people can get on to the allowance after nine months. The employment outcomes of people who went on the back to education allowance scheme who did either a short course for a year or a longer degree course, compared to a control group of identical people - this research was done by the ESRI for the Department, not by the Department itself - were 14% lower. There are two competing things at work, the regression effect and the lock-in effect. For somebody who is unemployed, the lock-in effect is that they then go on to a scheme that lasts two years, then try to go for employment and the employer asks how long has the person been without a job. When the person says three years that immediately damages their chance of employment, which is what the evidence shows. For some people it is right thing to do. The issue is how does one target it at the right people.