Parliamentary Question addressed to the Minister for Education

To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will confirm that students
who started a funded course under the labour market activation scheme have now
lost that funding since the termination of that scheme and the advent of the
springboard scheme and consequently cannot complete the course; if he will
clarify the situation in respect of a person (details supplied) in Dublin 20;
and if he will make a statement on the matter?

Reply

The Labour Market Activation Scheme (LMA), which was introduced in 2009,
provided for 1,500 free undergraduate and 1,000 free postgraduate places for
unemployed people on part time courses in universities and institutes of
technology across the country.

Only those part time courses approved and selected by an independent evaluation
panel were eligible for funding under the LMA initiative. Students who
commenced an approved LMA course were funded until completion of that course,
subject to continuing to meet requirements of the programme. The course
referred to by the Deputy is a full time programme and was not an approved LMA
course. Students on this course would therefore not have been eligible for
funding through the LMA initiative.

I understand that the student in question has been advised that as he is
pursuing a full time course he may be eligible for support under the Student
Grant Scheme and that he should contact the relevant grant awarding authority
in this regard.