Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

Is the Minister convinced her facilitators are able to draw together all those groups? I am concerned that unemployment is continuing to increase rapidly, even in areas where there is what the Minister described last week as a "plethora" of groups. Are the facilitators able to cut through the layers of bureaucracy to assist people and get them onto courses? When the Minister spoke last July about people under the age of 25, she said her officials were spending the summer identifying young people in the regions who were eligible for appropriate educational training schemes. How many young people were brought onto such schemes as a result of the engagement of her officials over the summer months? I presume the officials in question were departmental facilitators, in some areas at least. How many people applied through those officials to get onto the schemes in question? I do not refer to people who submitted applications themselves, for example through other agencies.

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