Mr. John McKeon:

I certainly can. Notwithstanding that the plan has yet to be finalised, it likely that we will modify the Intreo process, increase the number of places on schemes available to young people, earmark a quota of places or opportunities on existing schemes for young people, vary the eligibility criteria in favour of young people and expand the number of opportunities currently available to them. That is reflected in the initial steps we are taking in budget 2014 to introduce a variant of JobsPlus targeted specifically at young people, to provide for an additional intake of 1,500 young people on to the very successful JobBridge scheme, to earmark places on the Tús scheme, to develop a pilot programme to support young unemployed people in taking up work opportunities and training schemes such as Your First EURES Job, to ring-fence training places for under-25s and to make funds available to young entrepreneurs via Microfinance Ireland. In total, the provision across these headings in the 2014 budget comes to about €46 million.

We have also started work on the Ballymun pilot, which the committee will hear about from one of the other contributors. We have EU funding of €250,000 for that. The focus of that scheme is working with young people in Ballymun on career assistance and guidance and with employers to then place them in employment. The project will begin its first referrals at the end of this month. Hopefully, we will get some people through the pilot next year. The intention is that all young people on the live register in Ballymun will benefit from the pilot.

I hope that I have adequately set out the context of the youth guarantee and given an indication of the approach that is being taken to develop the plan. We will be pleased to take whatever questions the committee might have.