Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will deal with the youth guarantee question first. Before Christmas, the Department submitted the Irish application and statement on the scheme to the Commission. We await the reply. We also commissioned the OECD to report on how the youth guarantee might work in Ireland. The submission to the Commission and the OECD report will be published early next Tuesday afternoon, subject to Cabinet approval on Tuesday morning.

A pilot scheme in Ballymun has brought together all the organisations dealing with young people who are unemployed or who have left school or training before completion. The pilot scheme will provide a complete service to these young people. I will be visiting the project later today to hear an update on progress over the past months. The Intreo system will be used to interview the young people who have been unemployed. Early school leavers need to be identified to ensure they take up the available education and training places. For those over 18 years the local social welfare officers will interview them to provide advice about career development which may result in a return to education and work training. My colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, has set up SOLAS which will take over the former VECs and the FÁS training centres. We had a lengthy meeting with Solas before Christmas. The Department will send clients to SOLAS for training, education and work experience.

At the end of December 2013, approximately 1,100 people were participating in the JobsPlus scheme and were in receipt of payment. We had spent over €1 million at that point on JobsPlus. Given the level of interest in the scheme we estimate that this will increase significantly during 2014. I repeat the message to any employer who may be listening. If an employer takes on a person who has been on the live register for more than one year, the employer will receive €300 a month by electronic fund transfer for every month up to two years that the person is employed. If the person has been out of work for more than two years, the employer will receive more than €400 a month. This is a significant incentive. We intend to make it attractive for employers to take on young people under the age of 26 and to make the JobsPlus offer available to employers who employ people who have been unemployed for more than six months.

On 10 January 2014, a total OF 6,451 interns were in the JobBridge scheme and 1,726 internship opportunities were advertised. Since the scheme was launched on 1 July 2013, approximately 25,000 people have participated in JobBridge.

The very good news is that significant numbers have gone on to secure further work. In addition, significant numbers leave JobBridge after the first four or five months because they have been offered a job, either by their host employer or through a network of contacts they have established. It has been an extremely successful initiative. It is a voluntary scheme and not for everybody, but it has proved of value to large numbers of participants.

Some 9,000 companies have offered JobBridge experience to scheme participants and we carry out extensive monitoring and checking of all of them. That information is then posted to the website. The last figures I saw showed there had been some 4,400 site visits to access information on JobBridge interns, which is very high. We also have a system of immediate web contact with either the intern or host organisation where difficulties arise, which has happened in a very small number of cases. It is important to note that we impose no criteria in terms of participants' academic qualifications. Some are under the impression it is just for graduates, but, in fact, the latter comprise only some 25% of all participants. Having said that, participants do include people with masters and even doctoral qualifications. It is very sad to have a situation in this country where young people and their families invested so much in education only for them to emerge into a bleak world of high unemployment. JobBridge has helped large numbers in that situation. I meet people all the time throughout the country who tell me they are very happy with their internship experience. I attended a concert at the weekend at which I was approached by several people whose siblings or children had found this to be the case.

JobBridge has been a very successful programme, but it is only one element of a suite of departmental initiatives. I take the opportunity to compliment the Irish Local Development Network on its work with communities throughout the State. I was told when I initiated the programme that it would achieve nothing. Instead, more than 7,000 people at any one time are giving 19 hours a week in very valuable community contributions, which are also helping them to get back to work. More than 20,000 people are participating in community employment schemes, thereby contributing enormously important assistance and services to their local communities. If we include the 20,000 participants in the back-to-education scheme at any one time, more than 85,000 people are being assisted under the various programmes. In addition, 10,000 to 12,000 people at any one time are working on starting their own business with the help of the back to work enterprise allowance.

There is no magic bullet that will fix unemployment in Ireland. It is about getting the country back on its feet economically and eventually securing a better deal from the European Union on the long-term bank debt we incurred as a result of the crisis. It is about utilising the series of initiatives I have outlined, as well as the work being done by the Department of Education and Skills in training people in the skills that are in demand.