Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Springboard is a specific initiative that strategically targets funding of free part-time higher education courses to enable the unemployed who have lost jobs in sectors in which employment will not return to previous levels, such as construction, to upskill or reskill in areas where there are identified labour market skills shortages or employment opportunities. That is what Springboard is specifically about, hence its name.

To be eligible for a place on a Springboard course a person must be unemployed, must be actively seeking employment and must be in receipt of one of the range of qualifying social protection payments, be signing for credits or have been previously self-employed.

A call for proposals for courses to be run under Springboard 2014 is expected to be published early next month. Details of courses subsequently selected for funding and the eligibility criteria for participation will be available on the dedicated information and applications website www.springboardcourses.ie from June 2014. It is not expected that significant changes will be made to the eligibility criteria in 2014.

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