Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise, as I had meant to comment on this issue and thank the joint committee for the report, which contains many really good things. While some of them are outside my remit, the report refers to the need for a national youth strategy in entrepreneurship, and Deputy Lawlor also raised that issue. It is something the Department is considering. It will produce a policy paper on entrepreneurship this year and will consider youth entrepreneurship in particular. Last year, the Department examined female entrepreneurship and initiated a competitive fund for female entrepreneurs, which initially comprised €250,000. However, it had such success that it has been trebled within the past year. There are untapped areas in entrepreneurship and youth may well be one of them. The Department certainly will give consideration to that.

As for the youth guarantee, it probably goes well beyond my role in that initiatives such as Momentum, JobBridge and Springboard are all new schemes introduced by the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton. They are targeting young people in an effort to get schemes that will be tailored to their needs. They comprise a mixture of skill and employment experience and it is hoped they will be successful. I consider Momentum to be a particularly well-designed scheme. The mix of on-the-job and off-the-job experience on 20 to 40 week programmes is really interesting. Moreover, some of the sponsors, of which I believe there are 72 in Dublin, are quite interesting. It is to be hoped it is a scheme that will really work well.