Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I will have to come back to the Deputy on that, but I do not believe they are taken into account. The table will be of assistance to Deputies in seeing the number of applicants from each different area. There has been an increase in the numbers this year because we have promoted the initiative significantly, the facilitators have been very positive and there has been a significant increase in the number of places available. There are some 146,700 extra places available in the further education sector, which demonstrates the level of activity. If some people do not qualify for the back to education allowance for full-time courses, there are thousands of new part-time evening courses available for people in receipt of social welfare benefits. I would encourage them to continue to participate in those courses.

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