Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I had hoped to speak to the section but everyone is speaking to the amendment. Young people are looking for jobs. They need the hope of a job but nothing was presented in the budget to give them that hope. One in four young people is out of work. The Minister says that the thinking behind this measure is to give people an incentive to get into a training course but the courses are not being provided. While €56 million is being made available for short-term FÁS courses, €48 million is being stripped from the supports such as youthreach, vocational education training opportunities and student grants. The net amount made available for young people is a paltry €8 million.

We in Fine Gael want to provide extra opportunities for young people by taking some of the savings that could be made in the overall social welfare budget to try to get young people off the live register and use the funds that would make available to create 13,000 graduate internship places, 10,000 second chance education scheme placements and an extra 5,000 community employment scheme places, along with 10,000 jobs as a result of a workshare scheme. They are real places for young people on the live register who do not have hope.

The Government is putting resources back into FÁS, an agency that has been discredited. It did not deliver for young people during the good times and will not deliver for them in the current climate. It is disappointing that the Government has decided to make an across the board cut in payments to young people, telling them to get onto training courses without providing the opportunities for them to avail of those courses. We need to give our young people hope and the only way we can do that is by giving them training places and job opportunities. We in Fine Gael have set out detailed proposals for creating job and training opportunities that would give them the hope they need and ensure that next January they do not have to go to Dublin Airport or any other airport to emigrate. This will be a very dark Christmas for many families with young people at home when on Christmas day parents look around the table and think that this may be their son's or daughter's last Christmas at home as a result of the failed policies of this Government.

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