Mr. Des Henry:

Deputy O'Brien asked a good question, which goes to the heart of our presentation and submission which is really about implementation. We freely admit that there are any number of policies, any amount of legislation and a massive amount of funding in this area, but our questions centre on value for money.

Members will see in our submission a diagram which shows the amount of money being spent per year in respect of a person in mainstream education and how when a person with a disability reaches 15 or 16 years of age he or she moves in another direction. We would question who is making the decisions in this regard.

Under the youth guarantee, which is an initiative from Europe, four countries will, because more than 30% of their populations over 25 years of age are unemployed receive funding. Ireland is included in this group and will receive €6 million. While the youth guarantee relates to all EU citizens, in terms of implementation in Ireland it now appears only people in receipt of jobseeker's allowance will benefit. I cannot explain why or where that change occurred. Europe has provided the money and requested that it be told only how it is proposed to spend it but the response from Ireland is to include particular people and exclude others who also need help. I do not understand how or why that decision was made. I cannot explain it.