Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I recently received a communication from a young man, Thomas Brophy, from the Tipperary regional youth service on getting employment through a job scheme which states:

I am financially stable. I have a routine. I have something to look forward to, it is different every day, it keeps me on my toes and I am not repeating uselessness every day. When I was out of a job, one day meant three days. The courses I did were brilliant and fun and I am working towards buying something. I have been in full-time work for four months. I have possibilities and I am happy. I would not get out of bed when I was on the social because there was nothing to do. It did not matter if I was getting paid twice as much money on the social, I had nothing to do. Now I have something to do.

To be fair to the Government, it has put in place an extraordinary array of schemes and programmes to get those unemployed for a while back into work, possibilities and hope. Senator van Turnhout alluded to the urgency to have legislation in place to commence the youth guarantee. There is also an urgency in how it is communicated. As I said at the Oireachtas education committee, there is something terribly dull about the method of engagement about the youth guarantee. I accept it is face-to-face but the message should be got across through television, radio, youth media and, as the Finnish did, through a roadshow.
The Council of Europe document on education, youth culture and sport is pretty good. I hate the word “synergy” but there is a massive synergy, work well done and cross-purposefulness in this document which outlines multilingualism, quality assurance of education and training, cross-border education, media literacy, entrepreneurship and the whole area of arts and language, culture and heritage. These should all be major elements in the youth guarantee. Jobs are not only in business but in culture and the arts. We tend to leave that area out or not connect it too well or readily to employment opportunities. The term “entrepreneurship” rolls off our tongues but terms such “arts”, “music”, “theatre”, “vocality” or “auracy” do not. One cannot be an entrepreneur unless one can discuss what one wants and how one wants it. There is interesting cross-purposefulness in this document and the youth guarantee.
There is an urgency to introduce legislation for the youth guarantee. Much money has been spent on these job activation courses. We need to examine them from every single angle. The communication of the schemes available is dull and uninteresting. I congratulate the Minister, however, on the work done and the effort put in by her Department to create some kind of possibility, hope, education and training for young people, be they coming out of university or long-time unemployment. Without our young people, we are not a society. They are our future and are most important. I cannot understand why the Chamber is not full for this debate. It is most important for Ireland that our young people have hope, possibilities, connection, education and feel they can get up in the morning, doing what Mr. Brophy said in a small way by going to work so they feel they are making some contribution. Even when there is work, young people will take work. It is a myth that nobody wanted to work when we were in the throes of having money thrown at us. People still wanted to work then because they want to be connected. I was in Ballymun for 25 years and never met a young person who did not want to work.