Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have a question related to that for Mr. Hession. Has the Department examined the impact on the back to education allowance and the impact of the change from 12 to nine months on the uptake of that allowance at the time? As he rightly said, we want people to get back into paid employment, but at their capacity level. For people who fall out of employment, getting access to education or retraining can be vital for getting back to a certain level of income again. However, at the moment they can only claim that for a maximum of nine months before they go onto the means-tested payment, so unless their employment happens to fall in line with the academic year it is of little benefit to them. It was previously 12 months. Has there been an impact with it being brought back to nine months? Could there be a reciprocal impact from reducing that to six months? Has that been looked at?