Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Like others, I genuinely applaud and thank the three organisations that are represented. It is an important educational experience for us all.

It is a little disconcerting that we are now heading into March and, as Ms Grainger told us, the work plan has not yet been approved by the Commission. It is almost as if we are going to do youth at the last minute without having the normal preparation for a programme that begins with fanfare on 1 January. That is the normal way that things happen with an evolving programme for the full year.

I am not clear on the Commission's perspective. I do not expect any of the witnesses here to be able to tell me what exactly are it aims and objectives, or what designation it is expected to achieve this year, other than for it to encompass youth and reach out, etc.

I want to specifically follow up on Deputy Ó Murchú’s questions, which are important. We are all concerned about the issue of a marginalised youth. There are many young people, and many older people, too, who would bluntly glaze over at the European acronyms. You could probably talk to any young or old person about Aim, Learn, Master, Achieve, ALMA, or not in employment, education or training, NEETs, and they would not have a clue what you were talking about.

We get into jargonisms with all these discussions.

Turning to specific questions, for decades we have been looking at matters such as youth unemployment. We have progressed a youth guarantee. I know Eurofound can only provide data but the statistics indicate we have not really made great progress and the unemployment rate of young people is still significantly more than older people. There is what used to be called unattached youth, which is more than simply those NEETs not involved with education and training but rather people not involved with anything, including youth work or anything else. I am a great believer in the power of effective youth work in vulnerable communities. I applaud Mr. McNulty and the National Youth Council of Ireland for what it has done.

Specifically, what more can we offer to ensure that more people understand what is available and that the Erasmus+ programme is not just for those who are connected? There is the occasional view of people being from a disadvantaged community when, by and large, they are not. Even Mr. McNulty spoke of a group of university students who could not avail of it and the fact they are university students means they are already a privileged subset of younger people in the country. Do any of our witnesses wish to address the question of how to encompass more young people in the projects and programmes available under the auspices of the European Union? How could we penetrate more deeply into the vulnerable communities that have correctly been underscored by Deputy Ó Murchú? Many of the people we deal with have no notion of any of the matters we have discussed and how they could affect their daily lives.

This has a political undertone as well in that the arguments of many Brexiteers and much of the fundamentalism we are hearing comes from a feeling that these institutions are meaningless in their lives. We must do something about that. If we are going to focus on young people, how, specifically in this year, can we in this committee or the Oireachtas take some small steps to address those matters?