Shane McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Question 108: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of persons on a national, county and local social welfare office basis awaiting their application for the back to education allowance to be processed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34287/09]

Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 155: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if she has satisfied herself with the processing times for the back to education allowance in view of the numbers applying for the allowance due to redundancy; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34289/09]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the table was not circulated in the House. What is the minimum, maximum or average time it takes to process these claims? A figure of 4,000 outstanding still in October seems a significant number. I appreciate that if people did not apply on time, they cannot be processed on time. However, what about those who did? From the people I know, I am sure a significant number of that 4,000 applied on time. The situation is a bit like dealing with the third level grant and will be an annual problem. Has the Minister any plans to front-load staff in the future to deal with the issue? The facilitators I have dealt with have been excellent in helping people, but there is a problem in that people are borrowing to attend third level in the expectation of receiving the allowance. If they do not get it now, we will see them drop out of the system.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister mentioned that those who have been made redundant and who may have redundancy payments will have immediate access. Is the allowance means tested and if so is a person's redundancy payment taken into account, which would in many cases disallow the allowance.

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Are there any plans to increase the post-graduate option, which only applies to certain courses currently, for the back to education allowance?

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Currently, if people have a masters degree they are considered not to need anything else. The allowance is restricted to people doing a course in education or the higher diploma in education. I intend to see if other post-graduate courses that might lead to a professional qualification can be considered for it.