Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

Sorry, I do have it. Yes, it is 13 weeks for the lone parent allowance application. However, as the Deputy will be aware, there are issues in that regard. It is not merely the case that one must have a child; a person must also be living alone and the income must be assessed. It is the income that takes time to assess.

Some 11,710 applications for back to education allowance have already been approved. This is a valuable increase of 67% this year. There are still approximately 4,000 cases awaiting a decision, a number of which may have come in only recently when people have made late decisions. The Department is working its way through that. I am encouraged by the number of people who have applied for it.

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