Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too wish the Minister well in his job, and I hope he takes a more rational approach to dealing with issues than what we have seen in the past five years. The argument has been made that the Minister is almost trying to protect young people, and people in general, from welfare dependancy. The Minister said we could all come up with research results that suited us. Most research shows that young people, and people in general, want to work, but it is the lack of available jobs more than the lack of motivation that is the reason so many of them are not in work. SOLAS and FÁS carried out a survey on their training schemes and found that young people as a group were particularly willing to participate in training schemes and that only 36% in the 15 to 24 age group had found work. I do not expect the Minister to create jobs out of nowhere, but until we can find jobs for people, we need to actively keep them out of poverty by introducing measures to do that.

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