Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

I thank Senators for their engagement. I thank, in particular, Senator Boyhan for his engagement on this particular section and these amendments. As he has outlined, I support the idea. We have followed through on having a review of the criteria for the educational supports that will follow once this Bill is enacted. As I outlined to the Deputy on the proposal for a review after one year, in respect of anything for which we gather data for the first year, it takes until the second year or into the third year to collate and understand the data and to see how well an initiative is working. I think the maximum period of three years gives us an opportunity to assess data after a year or a year and a half, or whatever category it falls into. The Government amendment means that a three-year period cannot pass without a review to consider the criteria, how they are being applied and how people are able to use the fund. As I stressed previously, this is not money for master's degrees or for professional master of education, PME, qualifications or anything like that. The fund can be for educational and training board, ETB, courses and above. It is to ensure that people can access different courses.

The provision under paragraph (c), to which Senator Ruane referred, means that if in 20 years' time the Minister conducts a review and for the previous three years nobody has applied, he or she might at that stage decide that if in another few years nobody else has applied, he or she may wind down the scheme. The scheme is specific to individuals who have availed of the previous redress. There were over 16,000 of those people. At a certain point, perhaps in 20 or 30 years, there will potentially be nobody left to apply for the scheme. We would have a scheme open and available to people who potentially are not there to avail of it.