Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is an issue with retention, but it is expensive to live in the country and it is not very good when people are starting out. It is the same with apprentices and so on. I used to always ask whether this could be beneficial or cost-neutral. If these people are not going to continue working, not going into apprenticeships or not working at all, they are going to be signing on. Would it not be better for the Department responsible to assess this and trial paying the jobseeker's allowance for the first two years of the apprenticeship to keep the person in the job? At least it makes it in some way affordable, because there are of course costs when people are doing an apprenticeship or serving time. It will be interesting to see what comes back on that.