Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

A range of education and employment supports are available to persons in receipt of welfare payments to assist and facilitate their return to the active labour force. These measures include the back to work allowance and back to education allowance.

The back to education allowance is designed to encourage people on certain social welfare payments to improve their skills and qualifications and, therefore, their prospects of returning to the active work force. It enables qualified people who have been getting a social welfare payment to continue to receive a payment while pursuing an approved full-time education course.

In general, to qualify for participation an applicant must be at least 21 years of age and must have been in receipt of a social welfare payment immediately prior to commencing an approved course of study for at least six months for a second level course and 12 months for a third level course. The 12-month requirement is reduced to nine months for people participating in the national employment action plan, NEAP. People who are awarded statutory redundancy may access the scheme immediately, provided an entitlement to a relevant social welfare payment is established prior to commencing an approved course of study.

The back to work allowance scheme is designed to assist the long-term unemployed and other social welfare recipients to return to work. There are two strands to the scheme, the back to work enterprise allowance for the self-employed and the back to work allowance for employees. The scheme is designed to support people who would not otherwise be able to return to the workforce for financial reasons. To qualify for this allowance, the person must be in receipt of a qualifying payment for a specific length of time immediately prior to commencing employment.

The requirement to be in receipt of a relevant social welfare payment for a minimum period has always been a feature of the back to education and back to work schemes, which were designed to recognise the special difficulties that people who have been unemployed for a long time can face when attempting to gain a foothold in the labour market.

I will continue to monitor the schemes but I believe that, overall, they continue to meet their objectives and that the time requirements ensure that limited resources are targeted at those who are most in need.

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