Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 41 and 46 together.

Lower weekly rates for younger jobseeker's allowance recipients were first introduced in 2009 and extended in subsequent budgets. These measures were introduced to protect young people from welfare dependency. In many cases, they have had a very positive outcome because our youth unemployment figures have gone from here to here, which is very positive. I do not think it is just because the payments have been reduced but I do think it has been a factor. In short, the answer right now is "No". The simple reason for that is because if young people under the age of 25 do anything else other than receive jobseeker's benefit or allowance, they will get the full payment of €198 so if young people at home want to be carers or take part in a community employment scheme, back to education or training with their local ETBs, they have a variety of ways of increasing that payment from either €100 or €147, whatever the age happens to be, right up to €198. As of today, there are no plans to change that.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

Should a young jobseeker on a reduced jobseeker’s allowance payment participate on an education or training programme they will receive a higher weekly payment of €193 which is the maximum personal rate for jobseeker's allowance.

The CSO's August 2017 monthly unemployment report showed that the seasonally adjusted youth unemployment rate - persons aged 15-24 years - was 12.7%. While this remains a high figure, it is notable that it represents a decrease of 4.5 percentage points from 17.2% in August 2016.

I am committed to ensuring my Department continues to identify effective measures to incentivise and support young people in finding and securing sustainable jobs. The best way to do this is through engagement processes and by incentivising them to avail of educational and training opportunities thereby enhancing their employment prospects.

The National University of Ireland Maynooth is examining the effectiveness of the reduced rates in encouraging young jobseekers to avail of education, training, employment programmes and opportunities. Initial results of the research were published as a working paper and these are being considered by the Department.

The 2017 Estimates for the Department provide for expenditure this year on jobseeker’s allowance of €2.16 billion. The full year cost of increasing the age related reduced jobseeker's rate to the maximum jobseeker's rate of €193 per week is estimated to be just over €109 million in 2018. This estimate is subject to change over the coming months in the context of emerging trends and associated revision of the estimated numbers of recipients for 2018.

From March 2017, rates of jobseeker’s payments were increased for claimants of all ages as a result of measures introduced in budget 2017.

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