Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Since entering office, the Government has made firm and steady progress on increasing employment and reducing unemployment. Some 61,000 more people were in jobs at the end of 2013 and unemployment has decreased from a crisis peak of 15.1% to 11.8% now. Data published by EUROSTAT, the EU's statistical agency, show that Ireland's unemployment rate is now in line with the eurozone average, having been up to 40% above the average only two years ago. Youth unemployment has decreased from a peak of more than 80,000 in early 2009 to an estimated 54,000 at present. However, it is still too high. For this reason, I am determined to increase the pace of our progress. The youth guarantee will be central to the issue of youth unemployment.

I have consistently stated that a fiscal response to the economic crisis was never going to be enough - there must also be a social response. The youth guarantee is a key element of that social response, putting our young people, who will build this country's future, front and centre. The youth guarantee can be summed up in a single word, namely, "opportunities". It is about ensuring that we give our young people the opportunities they need to achieve their full potential.

The concept of the youth guarantee is simple - to ensure that all young people under the age of 25 years receive good quality offers of employment, continued education, apprenticeships or traineeships within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education. Given the size of the challenge involved and the financial constraints under which we still labour, though, this cannot be done overnight. While our published implementation plan is ambitious in its scope, it is important to stress that there is no instant or single solution to the problem of unemployment among young people. It will take time and perseverance and involve ongoing investment and the sustained effort of the State, employers, unions and jobseekers. This is what the Ballymun pilot scheme has clearly shown.

The guarantee will be implemented on a phased basis over time by enhancing the Intreo engagement with newly unemployed young people and maintaining and developing the current range of education, training and employment interventions for young people. By the end of 2014, processes and programmes will be progressively rolled out across the country, including County Meath, to ensure that all of those young unemployed people who need the most support - that is, are assessed as having a low probability of securing employment in the absence of support from the public employment services - will receive youth guarantee offers within four months. The guarantee will initially concentrate on the hard-to-place young people, those who may have left school early or, despite their youth, have been unemployed for a considerable time.

Between 2014 and 2015, all long-term unemployed people under 25 years of age will be engaged by the public employment service and receive a youth guarantee offer if still unemployed after four months of the engagement process commencing. I consider long-term unemployed young people to be a major priority group, not just of the youth guarantee, but of our Pathways to Work activation strategy more generally. Without intervention and help, they risk becoming the "left behind" generation of the great recession.

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