Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

I identified this as one of the "savage 16 cuts" and I was outraged when it was made because the people who suffered were the long-term unemployed who had hoped to have a decent opportunity in the education system. It was an insidious attack on vulnerable people and it was a shameful reflection on the Government at a time it threw away €55 million on a white elephant, namely, electronic voting machines, which are gathering dust and costing a fortune to store. This cutback was an attack on the most vulnerable people who had not been to third level and who were given a second chance in the education system.

The only reason the cases of 172 people were rejected was the time limit on judicial review proceedings. They had not initiated their cases in time and that is a technical issue. The successful applicant produced evidence of the effect the cutback in the payment had on him and why it took him 11 months to initiate proceedings.

The decent thing to do is to pay the participants in the scheme who had a legitimate expectation, which is a principle of European law. They were given a leaflet entitled, Helping You to Return to Education, which outlined a scheme aimed at helping unemployed people, lone parents, people with disabilities and others to return to education to improve their career prospects. We are always saying the best way out of poverty is through education and employment. This scheme provided an ideal opportunity for the Government to practise what it preached. The Minister's predecessor, Deputy Coughlan, and the former Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, failed to do this. The Minister has an opportunity to redress a wrong perpetrated on approximately 5,000 people.

It is no use penny pinching on the back of the poor. If the Minister has to find money, let the wealthy produce it to pay the participants in this scheme. The majority of them are ordinary, working class people who have been given a second chance to pursue an education. We constantly hear the economy needs better educated workers. Why was a slashing committee allowed to interfere or tinker with a winning formula, which was delivering in this regard? It is beyond the Labour Party and me. We fought against it at the time. We said it was wrong then and it is still wrong. The Minister must restore the scheme in its original form, pay the people who were denied money, and get education back on the agenda so that ordinary working class people have an opportunity for second chance education. I implore him to pay this money.

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