Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will start with Deputy Ó Snodaigh's questions. The youth guarantee has been under discussion for a number of years at EU level. The important political aspect of this is that the European Union, for understandable reasons, has been focused on the banking crisis and the economic crisis, but, as the committee will be aware, there is an enormous human dimension to that crisis, particularly in the context of those who are without work, those who have lost their businesses and young people who, as has been referred to by a number of committee members, cannot get on the ladder of work having been trained and educated. If we get the youth guarantee, it will provide a framework for having pathways for young people which will avoid as far as possible a young person going onto the live register when he or she completes education or training. We should be able to provide them with work opportunities. At present, getting a job is difficult. If one cannot get a job, training, education and work experience such as internships are critical to not letting somebody go onto the live register where six months becomes a year or two. As members will be aware, one can go to estates where the numbers of workers - fathers, sons, daughters and grandparents - is much lower than it might be on another estate in another part of the same city. This is our crisis. It is a crisis for the individual and for the community, particularly in areas that are badly affected. If we get the agreement of the Commission at the end of the Cypriot Presidency in December, we will have an opportunity to bring that Commission paper to the informal meeting in Dublin and then to EPSCO. At that point, it would become a question of resources as the EU reviews its budget, which it is in the process of doing, ensuring that funds such as the European Social Fund are utilised in this specific area and that the European Union uses parts of its budget to stimulate employment, which, in turn, will help economic recovery in the different countries. In a way, in the 1970s and 1980s, as older people will recall, that was the widespread experience right around Ireland of how the European Union operated in terms of supporting nationwide initiatives, particularly for those being educated, for instance, in the institutes of technology, and in deprived areas.

On Youth on the Move, EURES acts to assist the mobility of workers. Since I have been Minister, I have attended approximately four job fairs held in different parts of Ireland to encourage mobility. It is a question that is frequently asked, for instance, by German and Luxembourg Ministers, in whose countries there is a shortage of young people and who are quite interested, for example, in Irish apprentices going to work in Germany. It is meant to facilitate that.

On the discussion with other Ministers, since I have become Minister for Social Protection, I have gone to a number of European meetings and have made it my job, on every occasion that I have been there and at every opportunity, to inform people about the level of unemployment in Ireland and of my view that the unemployment issues in Europe are a key priority for EPSCO to address.

I was asked for the figures on young people. According to the recent census, the number of young adults in the population has fallen by approximately 100,000 in the past three years, as Deputy Ó Snodaigh stated. That has been largely due to what statisticians call cohort effects, that is, that there were a smaller number of births in the 1990s. It also reflects migration flows. Some of these are our young people leaving to go abroad, as we all are familiar with. In other cases, young people from different countries who came here to work have returned to their own countries. There is a significant worrying number of our young people leaving to go abroad. I went abroad to work when I was younger. Provided one has an opportunity to come back, working abroad can be a valuable experience. I hope it is in the context, to return to the earlier point, of work to get experience and that the person has a choice and an opportunity to come back to his or her own country.

The big strength of Ireland is that we have a large number of young people. We have been sending small pilot schemes, for instance, of apprentices to finish or enhance their training, to German cities and with particular German firms, and that has gone quite well.

Senators Healy Eames and Moloney raised related issues pertaining to JobBridge, internships and training. Deputy O'Dea also asked how we can identify younger people in the Pathways to Work process. The core of the Pathways to Work process, which we are rolling out in a number of offices and will implement throughout the country later this year, is that when someone applies for a payment or benefit, he or she supplies data that will now be used to profile his or her record of employment, education and skill levels and previous earning capacity. The Department has worked with the ESRI to develop a prediction of exit from the live register tool based on these data. In many cases, highly educated graduates will spend only a short period on the register because they may simply need to look for another job. Every year, more than 140,000 people leave the live register to take up employment because there is a large turnover of people on the register.