Mr. Ian Power:

On behalf of the National Youth Council of Ireland, I welcome this opportunity to address the joint committee today about JobBridge and the Youth Guarantee. We have engaged with a number of members of the committee on these issues previously. I can tell those who are not familiar with our work that we are the representative body for 49 voluntary youth organisations in Ireland. Our member organisations work with approximately 380,000 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 years with the support of approximately 40,000 volunteers and 1,400 staff.

In light of the limited time available for this presentation, I will make a few short comments on JobBridge before focusing primarily on the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. We have circulated a copy of our report, JobBridge -Stepping Stone or Dead End?, to members of the committee. The report, which was launched last February, is based on survey responses and face-to-face interviews with young people who have participated in JobBridge. The findings in our report are mixed. Most of those surveyed and interviewed were satisfied after they had participated in JobBridge. Many of them indicated to us that JobBridge facilitated them in acquiring work experience, helped them to get active and provided contacts and networking opportunities to them. Our research identified a number of deficiencies with JobBridge, including poorly designed internships, inadequate mentoring, instances of unacceptable treatment of interns and a lack of clarity regarding the rights of participants. Other issues which emerged include insufficient monitoring, inadequate income support and evidence of abuse of the cooling-off period leading to job displacement. We are concerned that, based on the limited sample in our study, just 27% of people secure full-time employment following participation in the JobBridge scheme.

We have made ten recommendations to enhance and improve the quality and impact of the JobBridge scheme. We believe these recommendations would enhance the experience of interns, aid progression to employment and ensure public funds to support employment are put to good use. Following the publication of our report, we had a constructive meeting with the Minister of State with responsibility for this area at which we discussed our recommendations. We welcome the decision of the Department of Social Protection to conduct an evaluation of the suitability, effectiveness and relevance of JobBridge. We hope, based on our study, that this evaluation will involve consultation and discussion with actual participants and is more than a desk research exercise. Our involvement in this area has taught us that there is a great deal of value to be gained from talking to participants in JobBridge. Such interactions provide contextual flavour for what they are experiencing. At a time of public concern about low pay, precarious employment and poor working conditions, we must ensure the integrity of internships as a meaningful way for young people to develop skills through experiential learning. We must safeguard against exploitation by employers and ensure internships are mutually beneficial to employers and employees. It must be stressed that internships should not be defined as having no remuneration attached to them. They should pay the living wage where possible. Employers who pay the living wage should be recognised as only doing what is right.

Our concern about quality opportunities for young people is not limited to the JobBridge scheme. In 2011, the National Youth Council of Ireland was among the first organisations in Ireland to call for the introduction of the European Youth Guarantee to tackle the youth unemployment crisis. We believe in the premise of the Youth Guarantee, which is that young jobseekers should be provided with a guaranteed offer of a good-quality employment, education, training and-or work experience within four months of becoming unemployed. It is an effective way to support young people into work. Obviously, the incentive to implement the European Youth Guarantee scheme was assisted by the potential for the drawdown of significant EU funds from the youth employment initiative and the European Social Fund. We understand that the amount of money in question is approximately €130 million per annum. Our view that the full implementation of the Youth Guarantee could make a positive difference was reinforced by our involvement with the Ballymun Youth Guarantee pilot scheme. We will hear from some of those involved in that scheme in a moment. In the Ballymun example, the number of young people on the live register fell by 29% as a result of a co-ordinated effort by the statutory and non-statutory agencies involved.

While we have always understood that the implementation of the Youth Guarantee would take time and create challenges for all involved, we have a number of significant concerns. First, we are concerned about the pace, scale and level of investment in the implementation of the Youth Guarantee. According to the national implementation plan, some 28,350 education, training or work experience places were to be provided in 2014, which was the first year of Youth Guarantee implementation. Data provided by the Department indicates that just 23,213 education, training or work experience places were delivered in 2014, which is more than 5,000 fewer than promised. We estimate that prior to the introduction of the Youth Guarantee in 2013, approximately 20,000 places were provided. Our view, therefore, is that the extent of additional provision is inadequate. We hope the number of places delivered has increased this year. We would certainly welcome information from the Department of Social Protection at the end of the year.

Our second concern is that education and training is not solely an issue of quantity; it is also an issue of quality. Our experience has shown that the forms of education and training provided must be appropriate to the jobseeker and relevant to the labour market. Too often in the past, jobseekers were sent on training courses solely to meet the need of providers to fill places. A key feature of the Youth Guarantee is the development of personal progression plans between young jobseekers and caseworkers in Intreo offices to meet the particular needs of the young people in question. The most recent data available, which covers the period from January 2014 to July 2015, indicates that 9,073 young jobseekers completed personal progression plans. We believe the Department of Social Protection should invest more time, resources and staff in the development of personal progression plans for all young jobseekers who have been on the live register for four months or more. I refer particularly to the 18,500 young people who have been on the live register for longer than 12 months.

Our third concern is that the structures and partnerships required to deliver the Youth Guarantee are not in place. We have always stated and acknowledged that the Department of Social Protection cannot deliver the Youth Guarantee on its own and that all statutory, voluntary and private sector stakeholders have a role to play. This was evident in the case of the Ballymun pilot scheme, which clearly would not have succeeded without the partnership that was formed. The National Youth Council of Ireland has not been consulted or engaged with regarding the Youth Guarantee since December 2013 even though the national implementation plan states that as a national partner, the council should be invited to participate in the delivery and-or review of the Youth Guarantee. The members of the National Youth Council of Ireland who are working at local level have a clear insight and a role to play in informing what should happen next. While the national implementation plan gave detailed commitments and figures for 2014, it did not look beyond that period. There are no published projections or commitments for 2015 and beyond. If we are to improve the Youth Guarantee, we need to be able to measure its success. If we are to analyse the impact and effectiveness of the Youth Guarantee, we need more data and information and an evaluation of implementation of the strategy over its first two years.

We welcome the fact that youth unemployment has declined from an all-time high of 31.6% in February 2012 to 19.7% in the most recent figures, which relate to October 2015. However, the rate of youth unemployment is still more than twice the pre-crisis rate of between 8% and 9%. We are particularly concerned about the 18,500 people under the age of 25 who have been in receipt of jobseekers' payments for more than one year. In our view, it is simply not good enough to accept as a fact that the youth unemployment rate will always be double the national average rate of unemployment. We think it would be wrong to assume that the recovering economy will solve this problem. The reality is some young people will not be able to access the jobs which will become available without the education, training and other supports promised under the Youth Guarantee. We are all familiar with the social and financial cost and impact of unemployment. I refer particularly to the impact of long periods of joblessness on individuals, families, communities and society as a whole. The scarring effects of long-term youth unemployment are especially damaging. As we emerge from the crisis, as our economy recovers and as more jobs come on stream, investment in the Youth Guarantee makes sense and should be prioritised. All the evidence demonstrates that it is socially just and economically prudent to do so.