Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this important issue and affording me the opportunity to provide the Seanad, on behalf of the Minister for Social Protection, with an update on recent developments.

Yesterday, the Minister for Social Protection brought a memo to Cabinet with a draft plan for the implementation of the EU recommendation on a youth guarantee. The recommendation is that member states should: "Ensure that all young people under the age of 25 years receive a good-quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education." In agreeing this recommendation, the EU accepted that the guarantee would need to be implemented over a period of time on a phased basis in countries, such as Ireland, facing very significant fiscal constraints.

The development of the draft implementation plan was led by the Department of Social Protection working with the support of an interdepartmental group of senior officials from the Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Office of the Tánaiste. The draft plan brings together all Government measures in 2014 across a range of Departments that contribute to the transition of young people from education to work, and from unemployment to work. In keeping with the Government focus on tackling long-term unemployment, it is proposed that the four-month interventions will be targeted in the first instance at those young people most at risk of long-term unemployment as the guarantee is introduced on a phased basis.

Ireland already has most of the key elements of a youth guarantee in place including: a quality offer of second level education for all young people under 18; second chance education or training options for early school leavers via Youthreach and community training centres; access to free third-level and further education programmes; apprenticeship and work-focused training initiatives such as Momentum; access to a range of employment programmes and supports including internships, JobBridge; work experience, Tús; employment subsidies, JobsPlus, and job-search or guidance services, Intreo centres and via Jobslreland. Accordingly, in order to maximise the return from structures already in place, it is proposed to build, and reserve places, on the existing programmes for young people already long-term unemployed; develop variants of these programmes and offers tailored specifically for young unemployed people. These tailored offers will include: a differentiated fast-track engagement option under Intreo with earlier and faster engagement for young people; a special JobBridge programme targeted at young people at particularly high risk of long-term unemployment, including, for example, early school-leavers and young people from marginalised communities; and a JobsPlus offer for selected young people at the four-month threshold of unemployment. This will offer employers an incentive to recruit young people who face high barriers to employment before their period of unemployment becomes prolonged. There will also be an earmarked allocation in the MicroFinance Ireland fund for business start-ups and a reserved allocation of places for young people on programmes such as Momentum, with 2,000 places reserved and Tús with 1,000 places reserved.

It is estimated that expenditure on these programmes for young people will be in excess of €300 million in 2014. This includes existing and new funding, including the EU funding that is expected to be drawn down. The Cabinet gave its approval yesterday for this proposed approach and following from that approval, the plan is being prepared for transmission to the European Commission before the end of this month. The plan will be published in January.

In response to the Senator's question on consultation, following the stakeholders forum in October to which she refers, the Department of Social Protection sought submissions from those who attended.

Submissions have since been received from a range of bodies and individuals, including the South Tipperary Local Development Company, Wexford Local Development, National Youth Council of Ireland, SpunOut.ie, Ms Emer Costello, MEP, Youth Work Ireland, Tipperary Regional Youth Service, Education and Training Boards Ireland and a joint published submission from the Union of Students in Ireland, the Irish Second-Level Students' Union and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Officials of the Department have also discussed the issues raised by the guarantee with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection, as well as with the Employment Leadership Group, a group of over 100 HR directors and business leaders from Ireland's top companies with a specific focus on the problem of unemployment and on job creation.

Finally, the Department commissioned the OECD to provide advice on the implementation of a youth guarantee. It was asked in particular to identify best international practice and how it might best be applied to Ireland. The OECD made an interim presentation on its views to Ministers and officials from relevant Departments two weeks ago and will present its final report by the end of the year. The OECD's interim report informed the draft implementation plan and its final report will be published along with the implementation plan in January.