Mr. John McKeon:

I thank the joint committee for inviting us to provide an update on Ireland's youth guarantee programme. I am joined by my colleague, Mr. Paul Carroll, principal officer with responsibility for all of the Department's operations in the Dublin north region which includes areas such as Ballymun, Finglas and Coolock. In that role he has responsibility for the Ballymun pilot youth guarantee scheme. I am also joined by Mr. Brian McCormick, assistant principal officer and a specialist labour market economist who played a large role in drafting the Irish youth guarantee programme and submitting our proposals to Brussels.

I will begin by talking about youth labour market trends. The Government's primary medium-term strategy to tackle youth unemployment is to create the environment for strong economic recovery by promoting competitiveness and productivity. Economic recovery will underpin jobs growth. Experience suggests youth unemployment, which tends to rise relatively rapidly in a downturn, can be expected to fall relatively rapidly during recovery. There is evidence that this is occurring in Ireland. The youth unemployment rate fell from 29% at the end of 2011 to 24% at the end of 2013, while the number of young unemployed fell by 19,000 from 68,000 to 49,000 in the same period.

It is hoped this improvement in youth unemployment trends will continue. In this regard it is noteworthy that the reduction in youth unemployment over the past number of months is correlated with a recovery in employment levels among young people. For example, the proportion of 20 to 24 year olds who are in employment rose from 45.9% at the end of 2012 to 49.3% at the end of 2013, the first such increase in six years. However, it must also be acknowledged that the overall fall in youth unemployment since its peak reflects a number of factors, including an underlying decline in the young adult population and more young people staying on longer in education and emigration. Accordingly, in addition to promoting medium-term economic recovery to promote jobs growth, the Government recognises the need for measures to support young unemployed people in competing for these job opportunities and to keep young jobseekers close to the labour market.

Key to this approach will be the implementation of the EU recommendation on a youth guarantee, the objective of which is to ensure that young people receive a quality offer of training, education, work experience or employment within four months of becoming unemployed. In Ireland’s case we intend to achieve this objective by enhancing the Intreo engagement with newly unemployed young people, extending the range of interventions available to young people and maintaining and developing the current range of education, training and employment interventions for young people. If current trends continue, the impact of the new and existing interventions will also be supported by the recovery in the economy and, by extension, employment levels. In agreeing the recommendation on the youth guarantee, the European Council accepted that the guarantee of an offer of training, education or work experience after a four month period for those aged 18 to 24 years should be implemented on a phased basis in those countries, such as Ireland, which face significant fiscal constraints. None the less, while financial constraints remain a reality in terms of roll-out, Ireland will be implementing the guarantee from a very advantageous position, as recognised by both the EU and OECD. Many of the elements that will make up the guarantee at EU level are already in place in Ireland through the Pathways to Work and related strategies. These include Intreo, the transformative new employment service helping people back to work; JobBridge, the national internship scheme; JobsPlus, the wage subsidy scheme for employers; and work experience options such as Tús and gateway.

In implementing the guarantee as set out in the implementation plan published by the Government in January, we will build on these elements and, where conditions require and allow, expand them as necessary. In this regard we will focus on increasing the impact of these schemes in terms of supporting young unemployed people, with a particular focus in the first instance on young people who are most distant from the labour market, in other words, those who even in the Celtic tiger era would have faced difficulty in accessing the labour market. Accordingly, the guarantee as approved by the Government and commended by the EU Commission involves the following: modifying the Intreo process to ensure more intensive engagement with young people; increasing the number of places on schemes available to and accessed by young people; earmarking a quota of opportunities on existing schemes for young people, including, in addition to Department of Social Protection schemes, opportunities for accessing entrepreneurship funds via Micro Finance Ireland and training and further education opportunities through the Department of Education and Skills and its agencies; and introducing a developmental internship programme for the most disadvantaged young people between 18 and 25 years of age. These will be young people who have been identified as having significant barriers to gaining employment. Under this programme employers will be asked to make work experience places available for young people aged 18 to 25 years with low levels of educational attainment, long periods of unemployment and other social barriers to employment. It is proposed that at any one time 1,500 young people will participate in this programme and participation will be mandatory for those selected. We will also improve the JobsPlus subsidy arrangements for employing young people by reducing the qualifying period those aged under 25 years from 12 months to four months in respect of young people who are assessed as having a low to medium probability of leaving the live register. This is line with recommendations from the OECD. In line with EU recommendations to improve labour mobility within the EU, we will introduce an international mobility and language skills development programme for young people.

By the end of 2014 processes and programmes will be rolled out to ensure that all of those young unemployed people who need most support, that is, those who are assessed as having a low probability of securing employment in the absence of support from the public employment services, will receive a youth guarantee offer within four months. In keeping with the Government’s broader focus on tackling long-term unemployment, we will first target interventions at young people most at risk of long-term unemployment. In this way, we will ensure that our resources are prioritised to help those who are most in need. In 2012 some 56,000 young people joined the live register as wholly unemployed and some 35,000, or 63%, of these remained unemployed for four months or more. The target of the guarantee approach will over time be to reduce this level of persistent unemployment among young people. As part of the implementation of the youth guarantee it is proposed, subject to labour market and economic developments, to review the targeted nature of the youth guarantee offer before the end of 2015.

As I have already said, the youth guarantee implementation plan was published in January. It provides over 28,000 programme opportunities for unemployed young people in 2014, as set out in the table circulated to members. This figure excludes some 24,000 places provided for young people through post-leaving certificate courses, PLCs, and apprenticeships. Although not reserved for unemployed jobseekers, these PLC and apprenticeship places, together with the wide range of vocational third-level courses provided for young people, nevertheless contribute to the spirit of the guarantee. In regard to the 28,500 places for unemployed young people, approximately 5,000 of these were taken up in the first four months of 2014. This is broadly in line with expectations, as the student intake on certain programmes, such as the vocational training opportunity scheme, VTOS, and back to education allowance are concentrated in September and October, in line with the academic calendar. A new intake of young people to the second iteration of the momentum programme for long-term unemployed jobseekers is also scheduled for later in the year.

In addition, it is important to note that some of the initiatives planned under the guarantee require primary legislation to allow positive discrimination on age grounds in the provision of employment services and supports. We hope this legislation will be enacted as part of the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill due to come before the Oireachtas in June. Two employment schemes in particular, the youth guarantee developmental internship programme and the JobsPlus variant for young people, are dependent on this legislation being passed. The JobsPlus variant will be available as soon as possible after the relevant legislation has been cleared. The developmental internship, which will include a pre-internship training period, will be in place no later than the autumn. Passage of the legislation will also permit the introduction of earlier and more intensive engagement by Intreo with young unemployed people.

The cost of implementing the youth guarantee will be met, in the first instance, by the Irish Exchequer. However, it is expected that a number of these youth programmes will meet European Social Fund, ESF, and youth employment initiative, YEI, eligibility criteria and will be included in the relevant applications for Ireland. This will permit EU funding to be drawn down in respect of expenditure in 2014 and 2015 to a level that should enable the full YEI allocation for Ireland of €68.1 million in current prices, with a further similar amount in ESF funding, to be taken up over those two years. Given the way the funding is structured, in order to recoup these amounts from the EU in due course, it will be necessary that we spend, in the first instance, close to €100 million on relevant programmes each year, or close to €200 million in 2014 and 2015 overall. It is anticipated that actual expenditure will be significantly in excess of that amount over the period concerned. Taking existing and planned provision together, the current estimate of programme uptake by young people in 2014 of approximately 28,000 will involve associated programme costs of €336 million. If all post-leaving certificate course and apprenticeship provisions are included, the total programme uptake of approximately 52,000 has associated programme costs of €528 million.

Even in advance of the adoption of the national implementation plan, the Department of Social Protection, in conjunction with local groups, had secured EU funding of €250,000 to pilot a youth guarantee scheme in Ballymun.

All under 25s on the live register in the Ballymun area are being targeted for inclusion in the pilot scheme. The Ballymun pilot youth guarantee scheme is developing an activation approach tailored to the needs of young people, guaranteeing access to career guidance-assistance leading to identification of an individual career plan for the young unemployed person concerned, with a follow through to training, education, work experience or full-time employment. A particular focus of the scheme is to involve and build links with employers in the locality and the immediate hinterland to ensure the guidance and training elements of the scheme are tailored to the needs of the local labour market and to generate work placement-experience opportunities for participants.

The pilot youth guarantee scheme involves an initial group engagement at the Intreo centre followed by a referral to the Local Employment Service for a one-to-one interview with a LES officer when a detailed progression plan will be prepared. The result of this plan will be an offer of training, education, work experience or a job within four months. All persons aged under 25 years on the live register in the Ballymun area are eligible for the pilot scheme. Feedback from the scheme will be taken into account in the ongoing implementation of the youth guarantee in other areas of the country.

I hope I have adequately set out the current position on the introduction of the youth guarantee in Ireland and how it will be rolled out across the country in the coming months. I will be pleased to answer questions.