Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 108 and 155 together.

The back to education allowance, BTEA, is designed to facilitate people of working age on welfare payments to return to education to gain qualifications which will help to enhance their employment prospects. Jobseekers who avail of the scheme are exempt from the requirement to be available for work while participating in an approved course and, in addition, an annual €500 cost of education allowance is payable. Participants may continue to receive any secondary benefits to which they have been entitled.

Improvements to the scheme were announced in the supplementary budget which came into effect on 1 May 2009. To qualify for participation, an applicant must now be in receipt of a relevant social welfare payment for three months if pursuing a second level course or 12 months if pursuing a third level course. The qualifying period for access to third level courses is reduced to nine months for those participating in the national employment action plan process or engaging with the Department's facilitator programme. People 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. In general, an applicant must be at least 21 years of age prior to commencing an approved course of study. However, lone parents and recipients of jobseekers' payments who are out of formal education for at least two years can qualify at 18 years of age.

A total of 11,710 applications have already been approved in social welfare offices this year. This is an increase of more than 2,420 on the number of applications processed this time last year. I have made a table available of the number of applications processed at each local office. Because these claims are not recorded as a separate scheme until the person transfers from their primary payment to the relevant second and third level options under the back to education scheme, statistics are not readily available as to the number of claims awaiting a decision. However, indications are that there may be up to 4,000 applications still to be decided. A significant number of these are awaiting additional documents or information from the applicants.

Due to the nature of the scheme the majority of applications are made in August and September in advance of the commencement of the new academic year. Overtime is made available to the local offices to prioritise these claims and ensure that all applications are processed as quickly as possible and in time for the commencement of the academic year. However, quite a number of people delay sending in their applications and in those cases it is not possible to guarantee that a decision will be given before commencement of the relevant course. All possible steps are being taken to ensure that applications are dealt with as speedily as possible.

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