David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister of State back to the House. I wish to draw her attention to the eligibility for the ICT skills programme 2012. Many such programmes require workers to be unemployed for a time before qualifying for the retention of their social welfare payments, which can create problems for many people. I wish to read out a letter written by the local office manager in my county to an individual. It states:

I write in response to the inquiries you made to Ms Joan Burton TD, Minister for Social Protection, which were forwarded to me for reply on the matter of your eligibility to participate in the ICT Skills Programme, 2012.

In the first instance and referring back to your submission to the Minister, I accept you were given advice in late February that you were likely to be eligible to participate on the Springboard Initiative [...] and retain your Jobseekers entitlement whilst engaged on that training.

The Springboard Initiative itself was announced in May 2011 as part of the Government's Jobs Initiative, in order to offer people the opportunity to study on a part-time basis for higher education qualifications in areas where employment opportunities are expected to arise as the economy recovers.

No minimum jobseekers signing period was prescribed under the terms of the original Springboard announcement and with that in mind, my colleagues advised that your eligibility to participate on the ICT Skills Programme should not be problematic [to retaining your benefits].

However, after the ICT Skills Programme was formally announced as part of the joint Government - Industry ICT Action Plan, this Department received an instruction that for that particular programme, eligible applicants must [again] apply through the Bluebrick web site, but critically they must also have an existing jobseekers claim duration of at least six months in order to qualify to participate on the programme.

The same individual was told he needed to give up the programme, go back on the dole for six or 12 months and then start again, which is madness. There is unfairness here. I doubt if he is the only one informed of that by social welfare officers who obviously had misinformation or the information was just not available at the time. There is the obvious injustice of having to leave a course, sit on his backside for six months - which he does not want to do - and claim social welfare, when he should be doing a course. Even the formal response from the local office manager still got it wrong, because the requirement is not six months but three months.

Why is there a lack of communication from the Department of Social Protection and the local social welfare office as to what is happening? In this instance it is unfair. The person in question contacted the local social welfare office and was told he qualified for the scheme without affecting his benefits. He worked away and then came back to complete the appropriate form indicating he was now doing a course. He was then told his benefits could not be paid and he must either be cut off completely or start again. That situation needs to be investigated. While I do not expect the Minister of State to have the answer for this individual's query, I ask that it be investigated. However, I ask her to deal with the requirement for people to be unemployed for a time period. What is the logic for that? For people who want to do such a course it is unfair that they do not qualify if, for example, they are in receipt of payments for only five months - or in this case if they are in receipt of payments for two months and two weeks where the requirement is three months. It is an impediment for unemployed people wanting to start courses.