Marie Moloney (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I also welcome the figures released by the CSO this morning. It is great to see that they are moving in the right direction. I thank the Minister for the work she has done in bringing this scheme to fruition. I am aware that she has done a great deal of work, both at home and in Europe, to ensure that the scheme would be introduced here. The scheme was piloted in Ballymun and it will now be rolled out nationally.

I welcome the reduction in the level of youth unemployment in Ireland from 33% to 25%. Of course, the figure remains much too high. While job creation is once again on the rise, we cannot ignore the fact that emigration has placed a role in the achievement of the reduction to which I refer. The negative social impact of unemployment on the well-being of young people, their families and communities is incalculable. We must put a halt to the brain drain that is emigration. I appreciate that there will always be some level of emigration. Even in the boom times young people left in order to experience different cultures and find work abroad. However, they were always able to return because there was something for them to come home to. Unfortunately, young people are now being forced to emigrate in order to find work because they cannot obtain employment here. It is imperative that we create jobs in order that they might return.

The youth guarantee scheme must be properly resourced in order to ensure that high-quality educational, training and job opportunities will be created. The staff necessary to provide the intensive job counselling and guidance that will be required must be appointed. A recent study revealed the economic loss to society of not integrating young jobseekers throughout the EU is estimated at €153 billion. We face a stiff challenge in the context of providing a sufficient number of places for young people who are out of work. The most recent figures indicate that 42,000 of those under 25 years of age have been out of work for four months or more. It must be remembered Rome was not built in a day. It will take time and perseverance in order to make the scheme a success and the co-operation of all stakeholders - the State, employers, unions and jobseekers - is going to be required in that regard.

I welcome the fact that the Minister and her colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, are working together to deliver training and education places. However, I have serious concerns in this regard.

I have serious concerns in this regard because delivering education and training places in large urban areas is completely different from delivering such places in rural areas. For example, if a person aged under 25 years who receives a social welfare payment of €100 per week decides to return to education, the back-to-education allowance would not even cover the cost of transport from the Dingle or Iveragh peninsulas to the Institute of Technology, Tralee, which is the only third level facility in County Kerry. If he or she wished to move to Cork or Dublin, it would be difficult to meet the cost of accommodation. The Minister for Education and Skills has a role to play in this regard. Let us take the case of a person aged under 25 years who has completed a course at third level but has been unable to find a job in the area of his or her competence and decides to retrain. In such circumstances, he or she will face the prospect of paying fees on the basis that he or he received a grant or free fees for the previous course. The Minister should consider introducing an exemption for such persons under the youth guarantee.

I had hoped to speak about the JobBridge scheme, which has been reasonably successful, with 60% of those who have completed the scheme subsequently finding employment. In some cases, however, employers who take on a person under the scheme subsequently reduce the number of hours of their full-time employees. As such, the costs of full-time employees are reduced and the company benefits from having an unpaid employee under the JobBridge scheme. We need to be mindful of this unfair practice. Furthermore, if a company takes on two interns and does not provide one job at the end of their internships, it should be precluded from taking on further interns. In addition, Government jobs should not be offered to interns because they have no prospect of being recruited subsequently as an embargo on recruitment in the public sector remains in place.