Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Members of the Seanad for this opportunity to discuss the youth guarantee implementation plan. I promised the Senators that when we had the plan ready, I would be happy to come back and discuss it. I also want to thank the Members of the Seanad who made contributions during the drafting of the plan, particularly Senators Zappone and O'Donnell, who made very considered, detailed and helpful proposals on how the guarantee could be implemented.

Unemployment is the greatest economic, social and moral challenge this country faces. Our central target, as a society, has to be full employment because that is how we leave austerity in the distant past. It is how we increase tax revenue, build a viable social insurance system, reduce welfare expenditure and create room for new investment in essential services. It is how we create a more productive economy and a more caring society. It is how we make people in this society wealthier, richer and better off.

As Minister for Social Protection, I have focused on transforming the Department from the passive benefits provider of old to an active and engaged employment service through the Pathways to Work strategy. That work, and the wider Government drive to boost job creation, is now paying off. As compared with one year ago, more than 58,000 additional people are now in jobs, the vast majority of them in full-time employment. Overall unemployment has fallen from a peak of 15.1% to 12.3%, as the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office today demonstrate. That is something for us to celebrate because we are now on a par with many of the better-off European countries. While we still have a long way to go, it is a massive improvement compared with the 300,000-plus jobs the country lost in the wake of the bank guarantee and the construction collapse. Today's figures also show that the live register fell by 7% in January when compared with January of last year.

I am happy to say youth unemployment in Ireland is also falling, from a peak of over 33% to below 25% today. This downward trend is in contrast with developments in many parts of Europe where, in a number of member states, youth unemployment is running at close to 60%. However, although we have now exited the bailout and seen economic growth return, employment rise and unemployment fall significantly for young and older people, there remains a long way to go. This is especially true when it comes to youth unemployment. That is why we made tackling youth unemployment a priority of our EU Presidency in the first half of last year and achieved political agreement throughout Europe on the youth guarantee. It is why we are going to spend more than €500 million this year on providing employment, education and training opportunities for young people.

As I said at the launch of our implementation plan last week, the youth guarantee can be summed up in a single word, namely, opportunities. It is about making sure we give our young people the opportunities they need to achieve their full potential. It is about ensuring that our job activation and training system helps them achieve this potential. It is about putting in place the cultural and organisational change necessary to achieve all of this. The concept of the youth guarantee is simple enough - to ensure that all young people under the age of 25 receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education. However, it would be unwise to try to do this with the flick of a switch. While the plan we have published is ambitious in its scope, it is important to stress there is no instant or single solution to the problem of unemployed young people. It will take time and perseverance, involving ongoing investment and the sustained effort of the State, employers, unions and jobseekers alike. We need employers with a sufficient sense of social and community responsibility to play their part in the great national challenge confronting us of getting our people back to work.

As agreed at EU level, and in common with a number of other member states, the guarantee will be introduced on a phased basis in Ireland because of the financial constraints we are facing. Nonetheless, Ireland will move to implement the guarantee from a very advantageous position, as recognised by both the EU and OECD. Many of the elements that will make up the guarantee at EU level are already in place in Ireland through Pathways to Work and related strategies. These include Intreo, the transformative new employment service helping people back to work. I know many Members of the Seanad had the opportunity and took the time to go to their local Intreo office to see the new system at work, for which I thank them. The strategies also include JobBridge, which is the national internship scheme, JobsPlus, which is the wage subsidy scheme for employers, and work experience options such as Tús and Gateway.

In implementing the guarantee, we will build on these elements and continually widen them. There will be earlier and faster engagement for young people under Intreo. There will be thousands of additional places available on schemes such as JobBridge and Tús. We will reduce the amount of time a young person has to be unemployed before availing of JobsPlus. In keeping with the Government's broader focus on tackling long-term unemployment, we will first target interventions at those young people most at risk of long-term unemployment. In this way, we ensure that limited resources go towards those who are most in need.

I want now to address the Ballymun youth guarantee pilot project which, again, some Senators have taken the time to visit and are familiar with. In Ballymun, the first referrals for the project have already begun. While still at an early stage, the pilot has a vital role to play, not just for the young people of Ballymun, but in informing the development and roll-out of the national youth guarantee. Each young jobseeker we engage with will receive a guarantee of access to career guidance, leading to identification of an individual career plan, with follow-through to training, education, work experience or full-time employment.

An excellent team has been assembled to deliver the Ballymun project, and I have had an opportunity to meet the team on a number of occasions. The team includes members from the public employment service, Intreo, education and training providers, local development and youth organisations and employer and trade union representatives. I emphasise that such team work will be crucial to the success of the youth guarantee at a national level.

I am pleased to say there has been a significant commitment from employers, both locally and in Dublin city more generally. Next month, an employers meeting will be co-hosted by IBEC and the Dublin Chamber of Commerce to facilitate the active participation of the business sector in the pilot scheme. I cannot stress how vital this is. The Department, with the assistance and advice of the Labour Market Council, will seek to replicate this employer buy-in right across the country. The support and willingness of employers to give our young people a chance will be critical to the youth guarantee's success. Of course, it will also be critical to employers' future business success because, like everybody else, they depend on our young people for their future.

The Department, through the transformation from passive benefits provider to active and engaged public employment service, is perfectly placed to assist employers with their needs. To give just one example, last July we established an employer incentive scheme, JobsPlus, which is essentially a wage subsidy for employers.

Under this scheme, we provide cash grants to employers to help them meet the costs of hiring people who have been unemployed for more than 12 months. In the short few months since it was launched, JobsPlus has helped to create 1,286 new full-time jobs. The scheme is facilitating people to leave the live register and go to work. We are working in partnership with employers through the provision of a wage subsidy, something which has proved effective in countries with low levels of unemployment such as Austria and Germany. The creation of 1,286 full-time jobs in the short period during which the scheme has been in existence is a good outcome.

We hope many more people will avail of the scheme in the coming months. Participating employers have recognised the scheme's potential and acknowledged the calibre of people coming off the live register. There are many people in this country, both young and older and many of them highly educated, who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. They include people who, during the construction boom, went out every day with the dawn and worked until the sun went down. There is no lack of appetite for work or capacity to work among people on the live register. In the coming months, I hope many more employers will throw their weight behind both JobsPlus and the broader youth guarantee implementation plan. This will allow us to accelerate the pace at which we can get people of all ages back to work.

I have consistently stated that a fiscal response to the economic crisis could never be enough. There must also be a social and whole-of-community approach. The youth guarantee is a key element of that social response, which puts young people - the future of this country - front and centre.