David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 11, between lines 22 and 23, to insert the following:“10. Prior to the commencement of section 9 the Minister shall submit a report to both Houses of the Oireachtas assessing whether capacity exists within existing activation schemes to cater for all those affected by the section.”.

I regret that amendment No. 3 has been ruled out of order but that amendment and amendment No. 4 are similar in nature and the amendment before us provides an opportunity to discuss them.

The Minister would have perceived from my previous contributions that I am completely opposed to the cut to the jobseeker's allowance for young people and the section providing for that. Nothing short of deleting that section would satisfy me but, notwithstanding that, we have tabled amendments where we seek to insert a sunrise clause to ensure there is the level of protection about which the Minister spoke. In the context of her being confident that all the education and training opportunities places will be created and will satisfy the number of young people who are unemployed and that nobody will have their jobseeker's allowance cut and not have an education or training opportunity place, this amendment and the previous one that was ruled out of order propose that "Prior to the commencement of section 9, the Minister shall submit a report to both Houses of the Oireachtas assessing whether capacity exists within existing activation schemes to cater for all those affected by the section". My amendment No. 3 that was ruled out of order referred to 20,000 places because that is the figure from which we are working and the one we received. I want to repeat those figures again in the context of this amendment. It proposes that there should not be any cuts unless there is full capacity for education and training places. If the Minister considers the facts we got from the National Youth Council of Ireland are incorrect, she could give us the correct facts. The National Youth Council of Ireland's submission states:

We estimate that these... cuts will impact on at least 20,853 young jobseekers in 2014 based on those already on the live register, not taking into the account the new claimants aged 22-25 years from January 2014. From our analysis of the budget measures, [the] Government is providing an additional 3,250 places in Tús, Momentum and JobBridge as it is not possible to say how many places will be created on JobsPlus.

If the Minister considers that figure is incorrect, she might give us the correct figure but the National Youth Council of Ireland's analysis is that 20,853 young people are being incentivised into a guaranteed extra 3,250 places.

The analogy of the loaves and fishes was mentioned during a previous discussion on the Bill and that analogy can be used in this context because when I went to school 3,250 and 20,850 simply did not match. There is a very significant shortfall. The reason we tabled these amendments is to insert a sunrise clause to protect young people by ensuring that before any of these cuts are imposed and there is a reduction in jobseeker's allowance, which we do not support, those places are provided. That relates to the Minister's point about having ambition for young people. Let us make sure we provide the places for them. That is the core of our argument, namely, that there will not be enough places. I have explained the thrust and the intent of my amendments and I hope the Minister will be able to consider them and accept them.