Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The context of the Taoiseach's speech and the speeches I and others made at the Ard-Fheis was to ascertain how, through co-operation between my Department, the Department of Education and Science and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, we can make best use of the various existing schemes in order to facilitate as many people as possible to avail of training and education. My Department is actively seeking to ensure the schemes we administer are put to best effect in meeting the needs of those who avail of them. This will mean availing of vacancies in the post-leaving certificate sector and any spare capacity in the institutes of technology, as well as correlating our activities with those of FÁS.

As I said, we are actively looking to see what changes are required in the existing schemes to best meet the needs of those who find themselves unemployed. At the same time — and I know the Deputy agrees me with on this because we have discussed it before in the House — we must ensure we do not find ourselves in a situation where people are organising their affairs in order to avail of the back to education allowance, particularly in respect of third level courses. Nevertheless, there is scope to facilitate as many as possible.

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