Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister. We have one of the highest rates of unemployment in the EU, which can be as high as 29% in the case of those who are under 25. The figures are even starker when we consider the extremely high rates of emigration prevalent in Irish society. The image of thousands of young people queuing up outside the RDS to get into the Working Abroad Expo is testimony to the unemployment crisis we are facing. The ESRI has stated that 40,000 people will emigrate this year, meaning that 12 people in each of the 3,440 electoral divisions in the State will emigrate, which is nearly an entire GAA team in thousands of communities. I paint a picture that stands in stark contrast. At a time when GAA clubs are struggling to field a team, 40 clubs have been established across London alone. These comprise 36 men's Gaelic football teams, 11 hurling teams, 11 ladies' Gaelic football teams and six camogie teams. That highlights the effects of emigration.

The recently announced jobs plan only mentioned young people once or twice. I know the Government cannot create jobs and can only create the conditions for them. However, not all young people will have the third level education or the high-level skills suitable for industries such as the pharmaceutical sector. We need to start assessing individually these young unemployed people to find how we can match their skills to jobs and get them into the labour market. Why is there not a specific action plan on tackling youth unemployment?

I recently met European Commission officials on foot of the initiative announced by the Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, to work with member states with high levels of youth unemployment and to put in place measures to tackle it. Unfortunately, I was not very encouraged from what I heard at that meeting. The Commission's big idea was essentially to reallocate unspent

Structural Funds to provide a stimulus for job creation, but we have already spent most of our Structural funds quota so it is pretty well useless for Ireland. What ideas have the Government brought to the table in this regard? What benefit will the meetings have? Apart from giving a positive appearance of a proactive attitude, what are we doing? What is the next step? The Minister stressed that previous reports and plans fell down on implementation. Where next in tackling youth unemployment?