Illness/Injury benefit, Back to education Allowance

[limk_lady]

Hello, I would be really grateful if somebody could offer me some advice.

My situation is little bit complicated so I will try to simplify it as much as I can.

I was on illness benefit for 2 months over december jan following a pregnancy loss. While I was out I was headhunted by another company and because my previous employers treatment of my situation left alot to be desired, I accepted and when I was ready to go back I started with the new company.

In March I had an accident at work, and the following day the new company gave me my notice (nice of them). So I am on injury benefit at the moment, and as I don't have another job I will be signing on once my injury is better.

I then found out that the new company hadn't registered to trade in Ireland and hadn't been making any prsi/paye payments for me. They also left me short a fair bit of money in my wages and I have been struggling to meet my mortgage & bills.

I have been applying for jobs in the mean time and have had very little response... obviously the past few months of my CV don't look great to any employer, because of this I am considering returning to college as a mature student in September. I wouldn't b able to do this unless I qualified for the BTEA so I suppose my main question is does anyone know If I would qualify? Does the time spent on Illness/Injury benefit count or will they only count from the day I sign on to the dole?

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated

 

[Welfarite]

You must be on Illness Benefit for 2 years before you qualify for Back to Education Scheme. See here for more details

 

[pingu]

Interesting I have to date been on injury benefit for 21 months, with a serious knee injury excluding me from most work. ( I am 44 yrs old ) again upon advice from surgeon to re-train, I have been successful in securing a university offer for a BSc how ever when the course begins in september it will be 23 months. Now BTEA states 2 years or for those receiving other benefits 1 yr or 10 months. Now this I do not understand how that works and I have read the other threads but still confused. Clearly I am desperate to get retrained and back to work and would appreciate any advice on thi.s

 

[Welfarite]

Forget about months and years when calculating the qualifying period.

The qualifying period is based on days of benefit paid. SW works on 6 day week, therefore "1 year" is actually 312 days paid. 6 months is 156 days paid.

10 months is not mentioned anywhere, AFAIK.

9 months is mentioned as the qualifying period if a person is involved in the National employement Action Plan (through FAS).

 

[Ger]

Re. Pingu claim.
It MAY be the case that if you sign off your sickness claim now & sign on as unemployed, then you may qualify for BTEA under 12 month rule & they will take your sick time into account.
But check out fully first. (ring social welfare BTEA section) as I found both the local social welfare & citizens info not exactly sure when it became to the precise detail of 'linking' claims & my case, although broadly similar, was a few years ago.

 

[Welfarite]

Re. Pingu claim.
It MAY be the case that if you sign off your sickness claim now & sign on as unemployed, then you may qualify for BTEA under 12 month rule & they will take your sick time into account.

Yes, periods spent on other SW within a year can be counted towards the qualifying period. You would have to certified fit for work before applying for Jobseeker's payments.

 

[pingu]

Thanks for the info, I contacted BTEA and Injury benefit depts. Injury benefit said that I can be granted an exemption as it is going to education the only monies not paid would be the additional 500 euro ( although not wholly convinced of this just being told by phone to be honest ) at start of year. BTEA stated that occupational injury for first 6 months does not count towards anything so actually I would not have qualified under that scheme. I take it that with an exemption that the BTEA may kick in next year ?