Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1562. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the amount it would cost to remove the qualifying time periods and allow immediate access for all qualifying payments for back to education allowance or community employment training. [36400/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Back to Education Allowance (BTEA) and Community Employment (CE) schemes are not targeted at the newly unemployed. My Department provide a range of activation supports to newly unemployed individuals through the Intreo network to assist them in finding employment. The current rules are designed to ensure that a person who becomes unemployed is, in the first instance, provided with the one-to one intensive activation support of a DSP case officer to try to find employment before being considered for a placement on an employment programme.

CE is primarily aimed at long-term unemployed persons, which is generally defined as one year or more on the Live Register. CE is an active labour market programme aimed at persons who are not considered ready for entry to employment, with the programme emphasis on progression into employment and/or further education/training. The core eligibility criterion for CE is that the person is in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment for a specified amount of time, generally 12 months.

The BTEA is a second chance education opportunity scheme designed to remove barriers to participate in second and third level education by enabling those who fulfil the eligibility criteria to continue to receive a payment while pursuing an approved full-time education course.

The objective of the scheme is to raise the educational and skill levels to enable jobseekers better access to the emerging needs of the labour market in line with Government activation strategy. The BTEA is not intended to be an alternative form of funding for people entering or re-entering the third level education system. The Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) grant, payable by the Department of Education and Skills, represents the primary support for persons pursuing education. In general, most BTEA customers will also have certain registration and related college fees paid by SUSI.

A person wishing to pursue a course of study under the BTEA scheme will have to satisfy a number of conditions such as age, in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment for a specific period and pursuing a full-time course of study leading to a recognised qualification in a recognised college and progressing in the level of education, with reference to the National Framework of Qualifications among others.

To qualify for BTEA, a person must be in receipt of one of the following social welfare payments for a minimum period - 3 months if pursuing a second level course or 9 months prior to the date of commencement of their course.

A waiting period is considered essential for the BTEA. This scheme confers entitlement to income support for a period of education and, therefore, it is necessary to target scarce resources. Recipients on Jobseekers Assistance are required to engage in job seeking while exploring other options available to them.

There are no plans at present to modify the existing CE or BTEA qualifying criteria for persons who are not in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment for the required duration.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.