John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am not talking about unemployment rate, I was referring to the rates for the unemployed. The Minister may have missed that point. The OECD report to which the Minister referred, which was released yesterday, showed that Ireland has the highest rate of young people receiving unemployment and disability benefits across all 35 member countries of the OECD. The rate in question relates to over one quarter of people aged between 16 to 29 years of age. The Minister will have to agree that this is a shocking statistic but I await his response to the question as to whether he believes the cuts implemented are discriminatory, which is certainly the case.

We are all very aware of the Minister's attitude towards young people. At a recent committee meeting he stated:

... young people coming to Ireland get off the plane from Eastern Europe, from countries such as Poland, probably with neither good English nor good qualifications, and within a week or two they find a job ... we must ask why any young person in Ireland, particularly in this economy where jobs are not that hard to find, is in a situation ....

That is unacceptable. The cuts that have been made are discriminatory. There are no incentives for young people to get back to work. I put the question again to the Minister about those cuts being discriminatory.

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