Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this issue, which I have been seeking a debate on for some time. As we all know, we are in the midst of a severe economic downturn and large numbers of people are unemployed. The only way to get many of those people back into employment is to get them back into education. However, getting people back into education requires financial assistance. The back to education allowance provides such financial assistance but there is a serious anomaly in the scheme. Some people who have recognised qualifications are forced, through no fault of their own, to change direction and study for a new profession. This is most obviously the case with construction-related qualifications. The anomaly is that such students do not qualify for the back to education allowance because, in many cases, their chosen courses will result in a qualification which is the same, or less than, the one they currently hold. This is an enormous issue for some people, many of whom are still very young, who have reached the highest level of their profession and now find themselves unemployed. We all know of architects, quantity surveyors, engineers and a host of other construction-related workers who are unemployed. It is not long since we were crying out for these experts to service the construction industry. Their qualifications demanded a huge investment of time, energy and money and many of them thought they had a job for life.

Last week in a written reply to a parliamentary question tabled by my colleague, Deputy Creed, the Minister stated the back to education allowance is a second chance educational opportunity scheme. She qualified this by saying that the courses chosen must lead to a higher qualification than the one currently held. Most architects, for example, would have studied for between five and ten years but because of the dramatic downturn in the economy and in the construction sector in particular, many of them will never work in their chosen field again. Many of them are only in their thirties and it seems very unfair to leave them on the shelf for the next 30 or 40 years. Their continued unemployment is soul-destroying for them and an enormous burden on the State. For many unemployed professionals, their careers were so short that there was no scope for them to accumulate wealth. Very few of them can now afford to return to full-time education if it means giving up their social welfare payment. It seems crazy that if they do not go back to education they will continue to receive their jobseeker's allowance and other social welfare payments. Many highly qualified unemployed people cannot afford to re-educate themselves and may never work again. An entire generation will be lost.

I ask the Minister to reconsider the qualification criteria for the back to education allowance. Most of the conditions are reasonable but the progression requirement, as currently set out, is a major obstacle to many people who are willing and able to re-educate themselves. The Minister advised Deputy Creed in the aforementioned reply that her Department is currently reviewing a wide range of supports, including the back to education allowance. The anomaly in the criteria must be amended to suit the needs of the Ireland of today, not the Ireland of five or six years ago, when we were dependent on the building industry. We must give young people who are more than willing to go back to education a second chance.

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