Mr. Martin Corcoran:

I wish to come back to Senator Wall’s contribution on youth unemployment. Ultimately, it is back to the Department of Social Protection, DSP, because it has the demographics and the data and it is aware of the exact percentages in the various areas. One thing that would go a long way in addressing the referrals on youth unemployment would be the one year eligibility. One has to be on a jobseeker's payment for one year to qualify for Tús. If one has been long-term unemployed, a year is a long time for a young person and that can fill up with negative things also. Early intervention is very important there. That could be controlled by the local DSP office, where it could handle referrals of participants under the age of 25 but each supervisor or scheme would hold a percentage on their scheme for that under-25 group.

The other aspect of this is that by removing the one-year rule, one could engage with many of the colleges and the training organisations because once people finish on a Friday, and if they have no job to go to, they should be able to come on with us to get that year of experience so that they can avoid falling into this long-term unemployed bracket. That is a measure that the Department could move on quite quickly. The removal of that one-year requirement would go a long way in addressing that issue.

Through the Chairman, I will invite Ms Brennan in now as she has a number of points in respect of Senator Wall’s question.