Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I pay tribute to the work she has done in defending her Department's budget and defending basic social welfare rates. For all the bluster from the other side, it is fair to say that the anticipated cuts to social protection measures were far greater than the spending reductions ultimately made. As she stated in her speech, the Department was initially expected to make spending reductions of €440 million but this was ultimately reduced to €226 million. I know there will be further savings made through fraud and control measures and better management of expenditure. It is still a remarkable achievement given the conditions in which we are working that Deputy Burton has managed to protect the budget to that extent and indeed to protect basic social welfare rates.

I know Senator Marie Moloney and my other Labour Party colleagues have pointed out that the Minister's priority is to protect the basic rates of social welfare, carer's allowance, disability allowance and the other core weekly payments and protecting also crucial supplementary supports for pensioners, carers and people with disabilities, as well as child benefit. It is also fair to say and I think others on both sides of the House will acknowledge that Deputy Burton is a reforming Minister in spite of the very difficult economic conditions which she has been working with and that she has sought to ensure that social protection and social welfare is a springboard as well as a safety net for people, that it should be transformed as a Department from a passive benefit provider, which has been the tradition, to an active provider of supports and incentives to get people back into work and out of the poverty trap.

The Minister makes the point that social welfare payments should not just be seen in terms of money coming out of the economy but also as payments going back into local economies. That point is well made but it is often overlooked. We are seeing the Government's job strategy working in many ways. We are seeing the beginnings of a downward trend in our unemployment figures, which is very welcome but as other have said, they are still far too high, particularly among young people. Colleagues on both sides have rightly focused on the changes that this legislation will make to jobseekers allowance for young people.

The Minister's speech focused on that because it has been of concern to groups, including Labour Youth within the Labour Party. We need to interrogate and examine the changes that have been made for those aged 25 and under. In his Budget Statement, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, said that the dole is no place for young people. The European norm is that young people stay in education and training much later than they do in Britain and Ireland. We have a tradition of leaving school at an earlier age and going into the workplace. That is why the European youth guarantee is so vital. Instead of having people languish in unemployment without prospects and opportunities, there should be education and training if employment places are not available to them. As the Minister has said, it is better to be training than claiming.

However, it is also important that we consider our own discourse about this. Unfortunately some language has crept into the debate whereby people are blaming young people or suggesting they are not taking up places that are available. The Minister has always been careful about that and we need to be careful about that. We need to ensure that nobody is suggesting that anyone wants to claim welfare rather than taking a work placement or a training placement. The problem is a perception that there is a lack of places or a lack or appropriate opportunities. We need to ensure that is addressed and I was glad to hear the Minister's commitment in her speech to providing enhanced opportunities for young people who seek to take up training places, work placements or education placements.

I look forward to seeing the detailed plan to implement the European youth guarantee, which is to be submitted to the EU by the end of this year. I hope we will have an opportunity to debate it in the Seanad during which we can consider the measures in detail. The Minister has indicated that an additional €85 million will be spent on supports for jobseekers next year. From the figures provided by the Department I know specific commitments have been made in terms of placements to be made available for young people. The Department of Education and Skills has estimated approximately 30,000 places will be made available for young people in 2014 for PLC courses and 45,000 for third level places. Of course we have back-to-education allowance and back-to-work enterprise allowance schemes, which are demand-led and effectively uncapped.

The State has provided access to 80,000 opportunities on employment and training programmes, which enable young people in receipt of social welfare payments to retain those and in most cases to receive a higher welfare payment provided they satisfy the other conditions. The Department of Social Protection has indicated the number of those aged 25 and under, who will be affected by the budget measure on jobseeker's allowance, is slightly over 14,000 and in excess of 20,000 places are available for that cohort. We need to ensure that those places are available in reality and in practice. The concern that both sides of the House share is that people are incentivised at a young age - and indeed at an older age - to take up training place and work placements in order to enhance their opportunities of getting into the workplace rather than remaining on the dole indefinitely. That is a very important measure. We should never blame people who are forced through circumstances to stay on jobseeker's allowance.

I wish to make a couple of other brief points.