Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

I raised yesterday with the Taoiseach the issue of the back to work enterprise allowance. I told him I had watched "Prime Time" the other night which carried an interview with a young man. The programme was to do with unemployment and people who found themselves out of a job. This man wanted to set up a new heritage business in the Grand Canal area. The idea was that they would provide walking tours along the Grand Canal and have pod casts, a barge on the canal and so on. It seemed to be a worthwhile project but because he was unemployed he was having difficulty getting a loan from the bank to set up this initiative. He then tried to determine if he was eligible for the back to work enterprise allowance, but unfortunately he was ineligible because he was not long enough on the dole. To get the back to work enterprise allowance one must be on the dole for two years. If one qualifies for the allowance one is also eligible to get start-up loans and money towards equipment needed for one's business and so on. It is a very worthwhile allowance for which to apply and this man had a worthwhile proposal. He could do with qualifying for this particular allowance, but unfortunately he was not eligible.

The point was made in the programme by the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, which has made a budget submission in this regard, that the time one must be on jobseeker's benefit to qualify for this allowance should be reduced from two years to six months. The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association has requested that the waiting time to qualify for this allowance be reduced from two years to three months.

The Taoiseach agreed with me yesterday when I highlighted this matter on the Order of Business. He said we must examine these issues to ensure people who have ideas are not deprived of the opportunity to do something because of the application of an unrelated rule. That gave me hope that the Government might consider changing the eligibility rule for the back to work enterprise allowance. I would be interested to hear the Minister of State's response.

There is a great deal of publicity surrounding the campaign where people are being asked to put their ideas on to a website. Unemployed people with good business ideas could set up new businesses. Individuals are being paid social welfare who could help build up our economy by establishing new businesses, but they are being hampered by the inflexibility of our rules on the back to work allowance, the back to work enterprise allowance, back to education schemes and so on. At a time when so many people are going on the dole it is important to get them back to work and allow them set up new jobs in areas such as the one in which the man I mentioned earlier wanted to set up a business promoting our environment and our heritage, as opposed to building up our economy through speculation, development and so on, which was the case in the past. We must ensure that our social welfare schemes do not prevent people from setting up new businesses, getting back to education and the workplace. I look forward to the Minister of State's response.

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