Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I will ask about youth unemployment and training. If we add the number of young people on the live register and the number of young people on the pandemic unemployment payment, we get a number in the region of 100,000. That figure will increase significantly in the coming weeks. Some €200 million was set aside for training in the budget. I question whether that is enough. There are 80,000 places but I also wonder if that is enough. I will not focus on that today. I want to talk about the quality of training. The track record over the years has been far from great. I only have to mention the JobBridge scheme. I am concerned that the new arrangements include internships paying €229 for 24 hours. That is €26 more than the jobseeker's allowance. It works out at €1.08 per hour for employers. Under the JobBridge scheme, less than 20% of the young people doing the internship ended up securing a job in the host company immediately afterwards.

How can the Taoiseach stand over internship pay rates at that level? What guarantees can he give that this will be genuine training and not exploitation of young people?

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