Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

They will say that we need to end the age-related payments, because it is not right to base a payment on age. It should never have been the case. It has caused poverty in many cases. I look forward to seeing that report. I hope that it will be published before the summer recess and well before the budget, because as the Minister said, the programme for Government contains a commitment to restore those payments to a single level. That should happen and I hope we will see steps towards it in the budget.

The youth employment support scheme, YESS, has 1,000 participants after being launched in October 2018. That number is low. Have we looked at the issues with that scheme? Perhaps employers were not willing to engage with it. It is a shame because it was a good scheme. Will the new work experience scheme that the Minister is working to launch shortly replace the YESS or will both remain?

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