Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The bottom line is that we want as many young people to be given the opportunity and we must create a supply of courses and upskilling. Let us take the figure of 18,500 in the 15 to 19-year-old category. Why are 18,500 young people between the ages of 15 and 19 unemployed? There is no reason they cannot fit into a course, a placement, an internship or continuing education to ensure we can extrapolate from the figure of 18,500, which would cause a serious dent in the youth unemployment figure.

The same applies to the category of those aged 20 to 24. When figures are quoted, the language being used refers to Irish people emigrating. It is important to interrogate the figures and extrapolate from them because there is a natural rate of people who are welcome to this country, who work in this country and will return to their native lands.

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