Mr. John McKeon:

On the national jobs strategy, the Action Plan for Jobs is managed by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. We see our role within the Department of Social Protection as being to ensure that as many jobs as possible created under that plan are filled by people on the live register. This was one of the motivations behind the JobsPlus initiative. We want to ensure that as many jobs as possible are taken up by people on the live register, particularly those who have been on it for a long time. While youth unemployment is a huge problem throughout Europe and within Ireland, a more profound problem is long-term unemployment, including long-term unemployment independent of age. For example, youth unemployment in Ireland according to the QNHS is approximately 64,000, of which 20,000 people have been unemployed more than 12 months. As such, less than one-third have been unemployed for more than 12 months. More than half of those over 25 who are unemployed have been unemployed for at least 12 months, which is the bigger problem for us. As such, the jobs strategy must be a jobs strategy at a national level that creates jobs rather than focusing on particular cohorts.

With regard to the other member states and how much Ireland will and can apply for, the total amount available is €6 billion and the incremental amount is €3 billion. Some €3 billion of the funding available in Europe is money already distributed throughout member states through the European Social Fund. The proposal is to earmark some of that European Social Fund money for youth unemployment initiatives. In Ireland, we have already used this money on initiatives such as Youthreach, which are already targeted at young people. The additional €3 billion is from the youth employment initiative. Under the European Social Fund, 50-50 matching applies, which means Ireland must match every euro it draws down from the European Social Fund. This is not required under the youth employment initiative. This is where the 66% funding comes from.

In terms of how much we can apply for, we can apply for as much of it as we want. We can be as ambitious as we want and will be as ambitious as we can realistically be.