Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 410: To ask the Minister for Social Protection when a person (details supplied) in County Galway will be approved and granted the one parent family allowance [35822/10]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The person concerned applied for a one-parent family allowance payment on 16 September, 2010 and her entitlement is currently being examined. When all enquiries are completed a decision will be made as soon as possible and she will be notified of the outcome.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 411: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if his attention has been drawn to the fact that he failed to provide the cost of extending eligibility for the back to school clothing and footwear allowance to include all those families in receipt of family income supplement as requested in a Parliamentary Question of 29 September 2010; and if he will do so now [35828/10]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The BSCFA scheme provides a one-off payment to eligible families to assist with the extra clothing and footwear costs when their children start school each autumn. A person may qualify for payment of back to school clothing and footwear allowance if they are in receipt of a social welfare or Health Service Executive payment, are participating in an approved employment scheme or attending a recognised education and training course and have household income at or below certain set levels.

Family Income Supplement is a qualifying payment for back to school clothing and footwear purposes. People in receipt of FIS qualify, subject to the standard means test and any income received by an applicant in the form of family income supplement is not assessable.

There were approximately 28,000 claimants in receipt of FIS at the end of September 2010. Based on an average claim value of €485 the cost of extending the BSCFA scheme to all FIS recipients in 2010 would be approximately €13.6m maximum. However, given that FIS is a qualifying payment for BSCFA a number of the 2010 FIS recipients may already have received BSCFA payment in 2010.

As there are no statistics available in the Department on the numbers that were paid BSCFA in 2010 who are also in receipt of FIS it is not possible to estimate the actual cost of extending the BSCFA scheme to all FIS recipients.

Any improvements to the BSCFA scheme, including automatic entitlement for those getting family income supplement, would need to be considered in the context of the Budget and in the light of resources available to me for improvements in social welfare payments generally.

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 412: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the reasons for the decision to disallow an application in respect of a person (details supplied) in County Mayo and where it is set down that applicants who switch courses cannot be accommodated under the back to education allowance scheme. [35865/10]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Progression in education is a fundamental and constant element of the back to education allowance (BTEA) programme. The operational guidelines for BTEA specify that a participant who fails to complete, or drops out of a course will not be permitted on to the scheme to pursue a different course unless the Department is satisfied that certain circumstances pertain.

The person concerned availed of the BTEA programme in 2007 to pursue a one-year FETAC level 5 course in graphic design. In 2008 she was further approved for BTEA to pursue a three year course at level 7 in tourism. She dropped out of that course in October 2009 having completed year one.

She again applied for BTEA in September 2010 to pursue a course at level 7 in applied social studies. This course did not represent progression from the course from which she had dropped out a year earlier and consequently her application was disallowed. This decision was reviewed by a reviewing officer and the disallowance was upheld.