Ms Cora Horgan:

When one speaks later in a meeting there is a danger of repeating what previous speakers have said. That is probably a good thing, however, because we are obviously singing from the same hymn sheet. I work with Tipperary Regional Youth Service and I am here to speak about the youth work response to the implementation of the youth guarantee. I have based my submission on a proven approach that has been operating in Tipperary for the last four years.

We have operated as a youth service since 1970, but since 2009 we have focused on young unemployed people in our programmes. We have delivered 11 programmes, the flagship of which is the work winner programme. Through the work winner programme we have worked with 145 young people in the last four years, 70% of whom have progressed to education and training or employment. We are very proud of this figure. I would like to highlight the collaboration we have had with local agencies, such as the Department of Social Protection, the education and training boards, local partnerships and, particularly, local employers. These partnerships have been very important in providing sustainable employment and education opportunities.

The young people with whom we work are furthest from the labour market. These are young people who left school at the age of 14 or 15 years. They may have been out of work and education for two or three years. That is a huge chunk of a young person's life. They are the most challenging young people. They face issues such as few or no employment opportunities, limited literacy skills, low levels of education and training and family backgrounds that are not necessarily supportive of going out to get a job. Rural issues also arise. Much of what was described by the representative from Ballymun is similar to our experience, but we must also contend with the rural nature of Tipperary town, Thurles and Cashel. This adds further complications to our young people's lives.

We have found the youth work approach to be an effective response. We work with the most marginalised young people who need initial support and guidance to get into the jobs market and remain in it. I agree that the relationship between the practitioner and the project worker is important from the outset. We are an integrated youth service and, as Mr. Doorley has noted, there are a considerable number of youth work projects around the country. We find that the integrated model provides ancillary support to young people in education, training or employment. Many of our clients have issues with drink and drugs. A couple of them have been off the road for the last four or five years and are living in a small and rural part of County Tipperary.

They are caught and they think moving to Thurles is a big deal and do not want to do it. Those are the people we are working with. We are working with people who think nothing of doing up a CV, badly written, badly spelled, folding it up to the size of a matchbox, putting it in their pocket and then handing it to an employer. They think that is okay, but it is not and they need to be told that. We are working with young people whose parents cannot figure out why Johnny would get out of bed in the morning to work for 35 hours per week in employment and educational training for no extra money. They do not do it and their peers do not do it, so we are looking at that culture. Going back to what Ms Whelan said, having that worker to support these young people is very important.

Our work winner programme is our flagship programme and comprises three main elements. The main element that is very beneficial is work placement, which constitutes 70% of the programme. We also have an important training element, including general training and specific skills training depending on what the young person may or may not want to do. Then we have the individualised supports. This involves having our worker sitting in a room on day one of the programme.

Normally the Department of Social Protection sends letters to the young people in the catchment area and we receive 100 people under 25 years of age through the door. We sit down with each of them and ask what they are interested in doing and look at whether they are eligible for and committed to the programme, because it is a commitment. It is 35 hours per week of working and training. It is not a part-time job. We devise a career plan and ask what is a meaningful job for each person. Because our young people are coming from a very low skills base they are not going to be looking for jobs in the IT or banking sectors. They are looking at local employment opportunities.

I have a list of the diversity of jobs the young people in one of our programmes will have been participating in. It is everything from farming to salting animal skins before sending them to tanneries - it is not a nice job but one of our people did it - to gardening, barbering and golf-course maintenance. These are all local jobs. If people do not want to leave Thurles or Tipperary town one must find them local jobs they will enjoy and get up in the morning and go to, and which might lead to employment after the placement if the people work well. We have a number of young people who started off in work experience in local businesses and who are now working there full time.

There was altruism on the part of the employers who wanted to give these young people a chance. Sometimes they had to be encouraged to do it but they bring these young people in, work with them and identify the type of training they would like this young person to do. For example, if we had a person working in a cheese factory and the employer said he or she would be much more employable if he or she had fork-lift driving skills, we would access those fork-lifting skills as part of the programme. It is about giving young people the opportunity to help themselves and make the most of those opportunities. Not everybody is perfect and not everybody has benefitted but we have a 70% progression rate.

One of the factors that makes the programme successful is that the young people are at the centre of it. They design, dictate and tell us what they want to do. They might not say they want to be world-class musicians or rocket scientists. A person might say he or she likes phones and people, and would like to work in a phone shop. There is a job in that. They can find work, meaning in life and opportunities for progression. The young person and the project worker choose the employer, not the other way around. We do not have employers seeking free labour. It is all about the young person.

Those support strategies I mentioned are very important, such as talking to the people's mothers, ringing them sometimes to get them out of bed in the morning and encouraging them to come back for day two because the people are not that bad and they will get on with them. That ongoing skill and support is very important. The youth service is based in a sustainable organisation, so even in a year's time, after the programme is finished, young people can contact somebody if the programme is not working out for them or if they want to progress to another opportunity. That ongoing support is there.

I was laughing when Mr. Doorley talked about being out of work for six months when he first left college because I was the same. I worked in community development in Charleville for four months for nothing because my mother kicked me out of bed in the morning and told me to go and do it. These people do not have mothers or fathers to kick them out of the bed.

The following are our recommendations for action. We need to maximise the Youth Work Ireland response. There is a network of youth services throughout the country and we should use them because they have relationships with these young people already. We must target the young people who are furthest from the labour market. They will cost us the most in the long run so if we can work with them and support them we will get value for money. We must be flexible, local and innovative, try something different and place the young person at the centre. We must design locally based and locally responsive supports, and we must try to ensure the youth guarantee is a guarantee for all.