Some people go on the dole specifically to qualify for the back-to-education allowance, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Séamus Brennan insisted in the Dáil.
Mr Brennan told the House that a departmental inquiry had shown that 51 per cent of new participants in the third-level education part of the scheme had received unemployment payments for 12 months or less when they availed of it.
Fine Gael's Social and Family Affairs spokesman David Stanton said it was "ridiculous" to suggest that people would take up unemployment benefit or assistance to just to qualify.
Raising the issue, he said the Minister had promised in February to make a decision within two months on whether to reduce the qualifying period to nine months.
Mr Brennan said, however, the scheme was never intended to be an alternative form of support for people entering the third-level education system, and that was why the qualifying time to access the scheme had increased from six months to 15 months at third level.
In his budget proposals in December Mr Brennan reduced the qualifying period back to 12 months, starting next September.
He said yesterday he would finalise his thinking well in advance of September on the appropriate qualifying period.
The allowance aims to encourage people on certain social welfare payments to improve their skills.
It supports them while they pursue second- or third-level qualifications.
The scheme is aimed at those "most distant from the labour market and whose need is greatest".
Increasing the qualifying time to 15 months had resulted in savings of €2.2 million in the last quarter of 2004, but reducing it to 12 months from September this year would cost the Exchequer €1.42 million in 2005 and €2.4 million in 2006.
