Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising the issue. I am responding on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, and I am glad I can provide an update on recent developments.

The EU Council recommendation on the youth guarantee 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 an implementation plan for the guarantee 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. In developing the plan the interdepartmental group took account of submissions received as part of a consultative process with stakeholders, and the outputs from various EU meetings, including meetings of EU Heads of State. The group had also consulted with the OECD.

After getting approval from Cabinet late last year, the youth guarantee implementation plan was finalised and forwarded to the EU Commission at the end of December. The Minister for Education and Skills, and the Minister for Social Protection expect to publish the plan next week. The OECD report on the development of a youth guarantee for Ireland will be published at the same time.

The 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's broader focus on tackling long-term unemployment, the plan will in the first instance target interventions 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, as identified by the EU, in place including: a quality offer of second level education for all young people under 18; second chance education-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; State-supported internships such as JobBridge; targeted employment subsidies such as JobsPlus; work experience options such as Tús and Gateway; and reformed employment services which combine the delivery of welfare with job search-guidance services and employer engagement.

In order to maximise the return from structures already in place, the youth guarantee will build on existing programmes, reserve places on existing programmes for young people who are already long-term unemployed on a phased basis and develop variants of these programmes and offers tailored specifically for unemployed young people. These tailored offers will include earlier and faster engagement for young people under Intreo, new options under JobBridge for the most disadvantaged cohort of young people, new options under the JobsPlus recruitment subsidy scheme to accelerate the entry to work of young people and enterprise supports to help young people start their own businesses.

It is estimated that expenditure on programmes providing employment, training and further education opportunities for young people will be in excess of €500 million in 2014. This refers to both existing and new funding, including the EU funding that is expected to be drawn down. As part of this overall 2014 provision and as an initial step towards preparing for implementation of the guarantee, specific provision was made in the 2014 budget for reducing the threshold, in terms of duration of unemployment, for JobsPlus eligibility from 12 months to six months or less - in the case of persons aged less than 25 years; an additional intake of 1,500 young people on to the very successful JobBridge scheme; ensuring that 1,000 places on the Tús scheme are targeted at young people; developing a pilot programme to support young unemployed people to take up opportunities under schemes such as Your First EURES Job; ring-fencing a minimum of 2,000 training places for under-25s by the Department of Education and Skills, under a follow-up to the successful Momentum programme that operated in 2013, with income support for participants being provided by the Department of Social Protection; and the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation making €2.5 million available to young entrepreneurs via Microfinance Ireland and other business start-up schemes. In total, the provision across these specific headings in the 2014 budget amounts to €46 million.

In relation to the Senator's question on the Ballymun youth pilot, the first referrals to the project began last week at the Ballymun Intreo office. All persons aged under 25 on the live register in the Ballymun area will be eligible for the pilot.

The pilot involves an initial group engagement at the Intreo office followed by a referral to the local employment service, LES, for a one-to-one interview with a LES officer where a detailed progression plan will be prepared. The result of this progression plan will be an offer of a training, education, work experience, or job within four months.

I am pleased to say that there is significant commitment from employers both locally and in Dublin city more generally to provide the young people with job placements and work experience. An employers' meeting will be co-hosted by IBEC and the Dublin Chamber of Commerce next month to facilitate the active participation of the business sector in the pilot.

Other initiatives taking place as part of the pilot include an event to promote youth entrepreneurship organised by Dublin young entrepreneurs and bilateral arrangement to provide apprenticeship and language learning opportunities in Germany. These initiatives are being partly funded by the European Commission which awarded us €250,000 towards the total cost of the project, which is just over €300,000. There will also be an ongoing evaluation to ensure that the pilot itself is adapted in light of experience as it progresses and to gain early lessons that will be applicable to the wider roll out of the youth guarantee across the country.

A dissemination conference will be organised to highlight the outcomes of the pilot and to feed into the national and EU discussion on the development of future youth guarantee schemes that are relevant to young people and labour market integration.