Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

The qualifying criteria for these schemes were designed in a different era for a very different problem. Why must a person who becomes unemployed wait at least 12 months before being permitted to avail of the back to education allowance in order to attend a third level course? Surely an unemployed person should be encouraged in every way possible to avail of further training to enable him or her to apply for new jobs in the future.

What on earth is the justification for requiring an unemployed person to wait for at least two years before he or she has an entitlement to the back to enterprise allowance? Surely we should be doing everything we possibly can to ensure that unemployed people get back into education and back into enterprise as quickly as possible. There can be no justification for those time lags. Why will the Minister not reconsider those?

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