BTEA: Switching from Qualified Adult to Social Welfare during the qualifying period.

Hey guys,

This is my first post here, really hope that someone can answer my question. I've done a search already but haven't found anything relating to my situation in past threads.

I've been a Qualifying Adult on my partners Social Welfare claim for most of the summer (just over 3 months) and I sent in an application for the BTEA a couple weeks ago. However, since sending in my application my partner has found a job so he has signed off and I am in the process of making my own claim. When I went in to the Social Welfare Office during the week, I explained my situation to the man behind the desk and he seemed a bit doubtful about the situation but didn't comment too much on it as he was possibly uncertain of the rules around it. I'm just waiting for the bank to send out a bank statement for my proof of address before I can finalise my claim and have it sent off for review.

I did a bit more research online last night and I found this on the Welfare.ie website:

Periods spent in receipt of a Qualified Adult Allowance may not be added to periods in receipt of a personal rate of social welfare payment in order to link a claim to qualify for Back to Education .

It seems pretty clear that this means that I will no longer qualify but I guess I'm just hoping for some way around it or just to know for sure that I won't qualify so I can start thinking about what I need to do now.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight that you can give me,

I don't think you will qualify sorry. People should always have a claim in their own right, and not be a Qualified Adult. It locks you out from a lot of training and education opportunities, and increasingly so as these are nearly all live register measures now.