Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2003: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dr. Henry: This seems to be another case of a lack of co-ordination between Departments. Other Senators have pointed out that the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Noel Dempsey, is encouraging people to go back to education in order they can be usefully employed in the highly technical areas we want to promote, yet the Department of Social and Family Affairs is severely cutting the back-to-education allowance. This will affect women particularly badly. The Minister is aware of my involvement with Cherish, the single mothers organisation, because she kindly opened a large conference we organised last year. The back-to-education allowance has been extraordinarily important for the young women concerned. This will be a serious setback for many of them.
I am involved in the trust fund in Trinity College and we try, with our limited funds, to help students with financial difficulties, one of the major reasons they drop out of education. It is hard, as other Senators have pointed out, to see students who may be in second year wondering how they will complete their degree. More will call on us if this unfortunate cut is made.
I want to tell the Minister something she may not have heard. I know I am speaking to a discreet audience. Such decisions can be reversed. We had trouble last autumn because there was a postgraduate course in Trinity College for clinical psychologists, of which there is a ghastly shortage. Only approximately 50% of those needed are available and there has been a worldwide search to get them. It was decided by the Department of Education and Science that it would run a course for 20 postgraduates in clinical psychology. There must be posts in the health service and the course was organised by the Department of Health and Children with the North Western Area Health Board of the Eastern Regional Health Authority. However, two weeks before it was due to start and with those who were to teach the course in place and being paid, the Department of Health and Children decided it would not employ the postgraduate students, many of whom had given up jobs to do the course. I am delighted that all hell was raised by me and others and we managed to get the decision reversed.
This, therefore, is a decision the Minister can reverse. She could say she had terrible trouble in the Seanad and that she was told this was a serious mistake. It is not a huge fund or a staggering amount. As has been pointed out, many of the people concerned will draw unemployment money instead. I appeal to the Minister to say this is one decision she wants reversed. It has happened before and can happen again.
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