Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There were 300,590 recipients of jobseeker’s allowance at the end of December last year. Up to 100,000 of those were working part time or signing for credits and the number has fallen significantly since. Reduced rates for younger jobseeker’s allowance recipients were first introduced when Deputy O'Dea was a member of Government in 2009. Budget 2014 further extended the reduced rates of jobseeker’s allowance to recipients under 26 years of age.

The decision was made on foot of ongoing consideration of unemployment and incentives policy by the Government. The measure aims to incentivise young jobseeker’s allowance recipients to avail of education and training opportunities. A jobseeker in receipt of the reduced jobseeker’s allowance rate who participates in an education or training programme will receive a higher weekly payment of €160. Some 4,700 individuals under 26 years of age are entitled to a reduced rate of jobseeker’s allowance on SOLAS funded training courses. More young jobseekers, approximately 5,000, are also attending other courses operated by the education and training boards such as the vocational training opportunities scheme, VTOS, and Youthreach.

At the end of March 2014 there were 57,900 jobseeker’s allowance recipients under 26 years of age, of which 36,800 were in receipt of a reduced jobseeker’s allowance payment. The equivalent figures for December 2013, before the introduction of the Budget 2014 measures, was 65,400 because, thankfully, the rate of youth unemployment is falling significantly. We want to incentivise young people not to end up trapped on social welfare but to take opportunities for education and training, and to take up employment where it is available, which would pay them infinitely more. That was the reasoning behind the Deputy's Government introducing this measure in 2009.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

Some 39,400 of those 65,400 jobseeker’s allowance recipients under 26 years of age in December 2013 were in receipt of a reduced jobseeker’s payment. When allowance is made for seasonal factors, the trend in the number of young people on the live register has been in line with the trend for the register overall in the early part of 2014. However, the impact of changes like this is likely to be gradual rather than immediate, and will need to be monitored over time.

In order to incentivise young jobseekers to avail of education and training opportunities and try to avoid them becoming welfare dependent from a young age, the changes made to Jobseeker’s allowance rates in 2009 were extended in budget 2014. This decision was made to encourage young jobseekers to improve their skills and to ensure that they are better placed to avail of a future employment opportunity. A cornerstone of the Government’s strategy to tackle youth unemployment will be the implementation of the youth guarantee, which will ensure that young people receive a quality offer of assistance within four months of becoming unemployed. This objective is to be achieved over time by enhancing the Intreo engagement with newly unemployed young people, and by maintaining and developing the current range of education, training and employment interventions for young people. The youth guarantee is already being piloted in Ballymun involving a partnership of key national and local stakeholders. The findings from this pilot, which is being mainly funded by the European Commission, will feed into the national roll-out of the guarantee.

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