Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 35:

In page 14, after line 7, to insert the following:

“10. The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection shall, within three months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a report on the provision of educational opportunities for people in receipt of social welfare payments, including:

(a) an examination of the range of educational options presented to jobseekers, including those on jobseeker’s transitional payment;

(b) a consideration of anomalies in access to back to education allowance;

(c) a review of literacy supports presented to jobseekers, and

(d) recommendations in relation to paragraphs (a), (b) and (c).”.

This concerns educational opportunities and options. It seeks to ensure that we revisit the kinds of educational options that are offered in the State to those currently on the live register and those who are unemployed. We had a number of debates on this about two years ago when the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection produced a report on activation. The report found that, as was consistently stated by a number of witnesses, the education option was not always given the same value and there were a number of inadvertent but significant obstacles around the education option being presented. Some officials were sceptical about whether the education option should be valued in the same way as an employment offering to individuals going through the system.The Minister spoke about her feeling that people should be able to find the best pathway forward, be it education, training or employment in some form. I am trying to tease out three of those obstacles because while we have discussed them and they have come up, we have not really progressed in terms of addressing them. I note the research presented to us by NESC and others suggested one of the key problems preventing success of educational options within the activation system is inappropriate education options being put forward. For example, persons can end up in a course that is perhaps not suited to them, sometimes simply as a matter of timing or a matter of which courses are available within a set period of time. Of course, it suits everybody better if people have a better match and a better educational option that allows them to progress, rather than a course which may move them temporarily off the register but which sees them circle around in six months or a year's time.

This is around an examination of the range of educational options presented to jobseekers, including those on jobseeker’s transitional payment, and a consideration of certain anomalies in access to the back to education allowance. There are concerns in regard to the intersection of that allowance and the SUSI grant and rent allowance, which we discussed previously, and a review of the literacy supports presented to jobseekers. This is again addressing the fact that some who are jobseeking will have literacy issues. NALA has been a very strong advocate in regard to these literacy issues. It proposes a review of the literacy supports that are presented to jobseekers and to have recommendations in regard to these issues.

With regard to amendment No. 42, again, I realised that I had put an unrealistic timeframe on this. The Minister will note I have a very short timeframe on many of these amendments. It is an attempt to recognise the fact we are coming to the end of a certain term and there are certain issues which those of us on the social protection committee have championed and which the Minister has championed. I am keen that-----