Dole during summer of college

HunterII

I turned 21 in june and i finished college for the summer last april, since then i have absaloutly no income, i have ran out of money from my last grant cheque and was told that i will not recieve my grant cheque till next november.
I was wondering if it is possible for me to get social welfare such as the dole until i get my grant cheque and return to college?
at this stage im desperate, i have no fixed abode either cause my primary residence was in college, and i tend to live part time with my boyfriend or my grandmother, my boyfriend also recieves social welfare for part time work and i really dont want to affect his claim.

Can anyone please help me out, im so stressed out from this, if i do not get an income soon, it wont be possible for me to return to college =[

Novella

As far as I'm aware, it is not possible to claim Job Seekers if you are in full-time education.

shiftkey

My son is a first year student, and when he finished college in May I had him fill in an application for unemployment benefit ( I also drove him around all of the local industrial estates asking for a summer job, to no avail ). Meanwhile, the local unemployment office wanted him to get his college to stamp his application and/or supply a letter of confirmation that he has been accepted on his following year. His application was accepted after a couple of weeks and then he was paid retrospectively to the day he finished college. He's paid €100 p.week.

Get yer ass down to yer local Dept of Social Protection ASA damn P.
And if they try to fob you off, tell 'em you know that you are entitled to it!

Good Luck Kid.

hdowney

shiftkey wrote: »

My son is a first year student, and when he finished college in May I had him fill in an application for unemployment benefit ( I also drove him around all of the local industrial estates asking for a summer job, to no avail ). Meanwhile, the local unemployment office wanted him to get his college to stamp his application and/or supply a letter of confirmation that he has been accepted on his following year. His application was accepted after a couple of weeks and then he was paid retrospectively to the day he finished college. He's paid €100 p.week.

Get yer ass down to yer local Dept of Social Protection ASA damn P.
And if they try to fob you off, tell 'em you know that you are entitled to it!

Good Luck Kid.

Was your son getting BTEA during the academic year? Because then yes he is entitled to Jobseekers for the summer (assuming no job can be found). But they don't do it the same for people who got the Grant as who got BTEA. They consider it that you are in fulltime education and therefore cannot be looking for permanent fulltime work

Manzoor14

shiftkey wrote: »

My son is a first year student, and when he finished college in May I had him fill in an application for unemployment benefit ( I also drove him around all of the local industrial estates asking for a summer job, to no avail ). Meanwhile, the local unemployment office wanted him to get his college to stamp his application and/or supply a letter of confirmation that he has been accepted on his following year. His application was accepted after a couple of weeks and then he was paid retrospectively to the day he finished college. He's paid €100 p.week.
Get yer ass down to yer local Dept of Social Protection ASA damn P.
And if they try to fob you off, tell 'em you know that you are entitled to it!
Good Luck Kid.

I'm astounded by this! I finished college in 2011, submitted my thesis on 1st Sept or so and received my results about 2 weeks later. I knew I was going to pass and had sent off approx 25 letters looking for jobs in my area.

Went straight into Dole office while waiting for a reply to the letters, with my final results, proof of job seeking etc. Was told I needed a letter from my college saying I was finished.

They flat out refused to give me one until I had graduated and was off their system. My Graduation was the first week of December, basically ~10 weeks away. Neither the college or the Dole office would budge on this.

In the meantime I also tried to sign up for some FAS courses, they said I needed to be signed on the dole. I had a bit argument over this and basically walked out when they said "That's the system, I don't agree with it either but there's nothing i can do about it."

Anyway, I picked up about six weeks work from 1st December over the Christmas period, and as soon as that was over I went in to sign on again, this time with the letter i'd finally got from the college!

The very next day I finally got a reply to one of my jobs application send off in September offering me an interview a few days later. Got offered the job later that day and took it so immediately signed off, even though I hadn't even received any money because they hadn't got around to processing it yet.

About a week later I got a call from the Dole office to see what my situation was and that they probably owed me money and that they would send it out in a cheque. I worked out that they probably owed me one or maybe two days max. Anyway no cheque ever came and I didn't think it was worth my time or effort following up...

I find it unreal that I got caught in limbo (i'm still not sure whether to blame the college or the Dole office) for 10 weeks. And then they ended up ringing me one morning to say they might owe me about €30...

I only wish I knew a bit more about the system, I tried to get advice from the Citizens Info office at the time as well but they just seemed to repeat everything the Dole office said. Can't help but feel I got a bit screwed over after reading the above!!

HunterII

shiftkey wrote: »

My son is a first year student, and when he finished college in May I had him fill in an application for unemployment benefit ( I also drove him around all of the local industrial estates asking for a summer job, to no avail ). Meanwhile, the local unemployment office wanted him to get his college to stamp his application and/or supply a letter of confirmation that he has been accepted on his following year. His application was accepted after a couple of weeks and then he was paid retrospectively to the day he finished college. He's paid €100 p.week.

Get yer ass down to yer local Dept of Social Protection ASA damn P.
And if they try to fob you off, tell 'em you know that you are entitled to it!

Good Luck Kid.

well i went down today to the social welfare office and they told me i need to provide a letter from the college, but they dont know if im entitled to back pay, so i have to wait until i get the letter to go back down, but its a major pain now, cause i should have done it earlier, but was living off the rest of my grant and now its gone, so i just have to hope for the best, but thanks for your reply hopefully i will get it and back paid too

username123

Could people clarify the exact name of the benefits they are talking about as you have never been entitled to claim Jobseekers (Allowance or Benefit) while a full time student.

eastbono

In order to claim jsa or jsb during summer while at college you have to be >23 years of age on 1st January prior to starting your course. People who qualify for BTEA revert to JSA for the summer months if they cannot find employment. If you have not been in receipt of BTEA and do not meet the criteria of being > 23 years of age on 1st January prior to starting your course you will not be eligible to claim jsb or jsa for summer months. This came into effect in June 2011. Prior to that people with a jsb entitlement could claim jsb for summer months.