Mr. James Doorley:

I realise I did not answer Senator Barrett's question about Canada. Our research showed that he is right that it has a very good visa system and many young people who emigrate there do very well. Some young people were advised that they did not need any further qualifications but when they arrived in Canada were told that they did need them.

Our organisation supports the idea that young people should be given opportunities to gain skills and qualifications through an activation policy. We feel sometimes that the debate here is false because the issue is not whether people are activated. The system in Ireland is quite poor because many young people go in expecting real engagement and sometimes they are given only one or two minutes through a hatch. They are being asked in that time to make big decisions about their future. We need to move to a system which takes on board the needs of the people who need the service. I know some people have campaigned for many years on this.

I am concerned about what the OECD said because in certain circumstances it is easy to come from outside and look at schemes and say that X% from one progressed into jobs and Y% from another and use that to increase one scheme or reduce the other. Sometimes they are not comparing like with like. The people on some schemes are highly qualified or have had huge experience and will progress much more quickly into jobs while other schemes might be designed to help young people who had difficulties in education or have limited qualifications and will take longer to progress. We are in favour of evaluating programmes to see if we can do better with what is there. We all need to do that but I am concerned that they are judging apples and oranges and have a limited understanding of how the schemes work. CE is a very good example. It is all very well to look at figures but have they spoken to CE participants or gone out to see how a CE scheme works? I am sure the committee members know that this scheme is very different from other schemes because they engage with the participants every day.

The broad message is that while we have a duty to represent the 17 organisations in the community and voluntary pillar, and the young people engaging with our organisations, we are not saying we will do this for only one group because young people are in families and communities. To continue saying we must stay on this hard road to earn rewards eventually is not a very positive message for the 18 or 22 year olds who are unemployed and considering emigration. They have heard that for five years. We need to take that into account. I agree that we need to do more and work more together. Organisations in the community and voluntary sector have made a concerted effort to collaborate and reduce costs and there have been huge reductions in salaries and overheads in the sector. We have all had to take huge cuts. I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to it.