Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Ríordáin for raising this issue, which is really important to him and really important to me too. It is true young people have suffered a lot in this pandemic. Different people and different sectors in our society have suffered in different ways. Women have suffered differently from men and older people have suffered differently from young people. Certainly, when it comes to the health impact, older people have borne the brunt of this pandemic in terms of lives lost and people hospitalised or made very sick as a result of the virus but the economic impact has fallen disproportionately on younger people in terms of jobs lost. Their lives have been interrupted, including their college experiences and their education, not to mention their inability to make friends, build relationships and do all the things younger people do. I very much agree with the Deputy's analysis and assessment in that regard and I certainly do not want us to lose another generation.

Too many times in the past we lost a generation of people to emigration due to economic mismanagement. Many people under 35 are now experiencing their second recession in their adult life, which is extraordinary. We need to make sure we do not have a repeat of the last recession, where younger people had to leave and go to other countries to seek opportunities.

We are going to respond to this in a cross-Government way. The Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, is meeting NYCI this week. I intend to bring together the Ministers for Social Protection, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and Education and others to see what we can do to respond to this problem. Part of that response may involve a catch-up programme for people in education, which Deputy Ó Ríordáin has called for. That will be for people who have missed out on schooling. There will also be a response in terms of educational opportunities. It is already the case that there are more people participating in third level education than ever before in Ireland and we want to continue to expand that further. The Deputy will be aware of what the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science is doing in relation to apprenticeships and increasing opportunities in that area. We also want to make sure that once the economy reopens, younger people get their jobs back and have better terms and conditions. The Deputy will know of the work that is under way on sick pay, a living wage and auto enrolment.

Deputy Ó Ríordáin said in his opening remarks that we have 59% youth unemployment, meaning that three out of five younger people are out of work but that is not correct. We calculate youth unemployment in a particular way in Ireland and do not include people who are in education or training. When we say that 59% of young people are unemployed, that does not mean that 59% of all young people are unemployed. It means that 59% of young people who are in the workforce are unemployed, or 59% of young people who are not in education or training. Of course, a very large number of them are out of work because they would have tended to work in areas like retail, construction and hospitality, most of which will reopen, we hope, over the next couple of months. Typically, youth unemployment is double the older people rate but that is actually not what it seems because of the way it is calculated.

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