Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The best message from the Government to the next generation is that we have a republic of opportunity, which is created by managing the economy and ensuring there is money to invest in services. If the economy is not managed properly there will not be funding available to invest in services such as education and the others the Deputy mentioned. The budget contained the highest-ever allocation for education, involving an increase of €554 million or 5.8% to more than €10 billion. It provided for 2,000 new teachers and special needs assistants. Overall Government investment increased by more than €1 billion in budgets 2017 and 2018. We have moved from having an unemployment rate of more than 15% to full employment being expected next year. That is a message of hope for the children in the country and for the people who left the country, many of whom, thankfully, are returning to take up the jobs the Government is ensuring are available. Job creation offers hope to young people in the country and those who have gone abroad but who can now return to jobs. That is the reality of the situation. It is a different reality to that depicted by the Deputy. This is the first time in ten years that a Government has been able to ensure that we can live within our means and doing that means we can provide the kind of future we want, one in which people have access to housing, a health service that works for them and the kind of education that is needed.

In terms of training for young people, there will be a fund to ensure that training courses are available for young people to develop the kind of skills that employers need. There is an increase in apprenticeships, which is a very important route to jobs for many young people and one in which there was underinvestment previously. However, decisions made by the Government will ensure that a range of training initiatives will be available to young people to ensure they will be skilled and will have the education for the kind of work that will come on stream in the new digital economy.

There has been very successful ICT training for young people which has ensured they have been job ready. Taken together, all of this gives hope to young people and ensures they will have a bright future in their own country.

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