Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Most of my questions will be directed at the Department, one of which has abeen addressed about the JobBridge scheme. There are huge concerns about employers, including the Government, abusing their position and availing of free labour under the guise of providing internships. I welcome the emphasis in Ms Whelan's presentation on career guidance and creating a career path. The Department has stated it will do much of this through its Intreo offices. I am not saying Ms Whelan should not be doing it also and also support the local employment services which also do this work. Will the Department outsource this work to organisations such as the Ballymun Job Centre or local employment services throughout the country and concentrate on other work, or will it employ career guidance teachers who have been laid off to do this work within the Department and Intreo offices?

A huge number of young people are unemployed and more are coming. If they do not emigrate, they will remain here. Is there capacity to capture all of these young people in meaningful training schemes which will lead to meaningful jobs and in education and post-leaving certificate courses? Many colleges of further education cannot cope with the level of demand. Will the youth guarantee allow for additional funding to be given to these colleges to increase the number of post-leaving certificate courses which are often targeted at filling gaps in the economy? They can identify quite quickly where a new factory will face skills shortages and capture these skills.

How many other EU countries fit the criteria to qualify for the fund? We have some idea that it will include Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. How many other countries fit the criteria? This will give us an indication of how much Ireland will benefit from the fund. Even though it sounds like a huge amount of money, when it is shared between 27 countries, it reduces.

I did not hear much about apprenticeships and we have gone through huge change in how they are rolled out. At the very least, apprenticeships are focused on a specific job, whereas other schemes on which the Department is concentrating do not guarantee a job or a qualification at the end. JobBridge has no training budget set aside. Community employment schemes have a reduced training budget, while Tús has none, which is of concern in moving towards the schemes.