Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The difficulty is that the budget change was presented as a measure whereby if a person under the age of 26 could not get a job there would be a place in training or education readily available which he or she could avail of and get an increased allowance, 60% more in most cases. However, there are not enough training or education places for the young unemployed. By the Minister's admission last week, 85,200 people under the age of 26 are neither earning nor learning. How many training places are being made available for those people? Is it not true to say that many of them, including many who have been unemployed for more than four months, cannot access a place in training or education and that in those circumstances it is grossly unfair to cut their social welfare?

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