Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The central purpose of progressive politics is to ensure that people achieve their innate potential and reach the full extent of their capabilities. I entered politics in order to change society part by part and step by step so that ordinary men and women would have a greater chance to live a better life. Central to this effort is to ensure that we create a productive economy of work with employment for all.

The Government's determination to transform our economy towards full, fair and productive employment stands in stark contrast to the credit-fuelled Fianna Fáil casino that destroyed

this country and the culture of dependency that is central to Sinn Féin's poverty of ambition. Listening to Sinn Féin's comments tonight, it seems that the party, in a way, does not really want young people to work, as it seems to have so little faith in them or their abilities. These competing visions are at the heart of tonight's debate and I am confident that the young men and women whose lives we seek to improve and transform stand squarely with this Government in rejecting the Opposition's delusions.

The evidence is irrefutable that youth unemployment does lasting damage to the individual and the society at large. For example, the renowned economists Bell and Blanchflower found that youth unemployment continues to impact negatively on an individual up to two decades later in a number of ways, including unemployment, health status, wages and job satisfaction. This is in contrast to unemployment in one's early thirties. They conclude that there are "permanent scars" from youth unemployment in that even a short spell of unemployment when young continues to have a harmful impact in later life. In short, the "scarring effects" of youth unemployment are a personal and societal tragedy that cannot be tolerated by any government.

Due to the severity of the current economic downturn, people in all age cohorts find themselves in a position of unemployment that they would never have contemplated. Many of our young graduates are experiencing severe difficulties in finding a demand for their skills among employers, particularly in the areas of property and construction, which have been so decimated by the recession. Side by side with the higher-skilled young jobseekers are unskilled young people who are drifting into long-term unemployment. In recent years, ESRI researchers have examined this cohort and made some stark findings about the risk factors associated with youth long-term unemployment in Ireland.

For those of us who are honest in the Chamber, one of the startling facts about Fianna Fáil's period of office in the height of the boom was the unfortunate number of families without any adult in employment, which increased dramatically. That is one of the reasons that in certain areas, including Donegal, youth unemployment, even before the recession, was quite marked. If we are having a debate, it is better to be honest about this, and I am sure the Deputies recognise that as a fact. Unsurprisingly, young men and women with previous experience of long-term unemployment, literacy or numeracy problems, no formal education qualifications and who live in large urban areas have a higher risk of becoming long-term unemployed. However for young women, additional factors, including whether they have children, spousal earnings and the number of welfare benefits that they receive all had a significantly negative effect on the probability that they would move from unemployment to employment before 12 months. Furthermore, the negative impact of these factors for young women is much larger than for women in general. These findings come from the ESRI.

This research underpins my strong conviction that we need to decisively shift the emphasis of our policy interventions for young people from passive income support alone to a renewed focus on skills, including a massive increase in numeracy and literacy. We also need to ensure that the benefits system does not become an obstacle to young people seeking employment. It is really important to have an honest debate about this.

When the Government took office in 2011, the unemployment rate was approaching 15%, with 500,000 people on the live register and youth unemployment levels perilously high and facing an upward trajectory.

That was Fianna Fail's legacy which was a difficult one for the incoming Government. In October this year the live register fell below 400,000 for the first time since 2009.

I wish to correct some of the figures given for youth unemployment. I cite the figures from the Central Statistics Office. The rate is 28%. The average number of young people unemployed in the first half of 2013 was approximately 59,000, down by 11,000 in 12 months. The unemployment rate for young people in the first half of the year was 28%, down from 31% in 2012.

See this speech in context