John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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316. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide an update on the introduction of a youth guarantee here; and the proposed pilot project in Ballymun, Dublin. [20245/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The EU Council Recommendation on a Youth Guarantee received political agreement at the EPSCO Council meeting on February 28^thand was formally adopted by the Council last week.

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.

While it is recommended that the guarantee should be implemented as soon as possible, it is recognised that implementation will be more gradual in the Member States experiencing the most severe budgetary difficulties and higher rates of youth unemployment. The government will now review the current range of youth employment policies in Ireland to assess what measures will need to be taken to commence the gradual implementation of the guarantee. This will include the identification of what would be the appropriate timescale for implementation in Ireland's current employment and budgetary circumstances.

The scale and nature of any additional measures required for the gradual implementation of a guarantee at national level will depend on the trend in youth unemployment, and in particular the number of young people likely to experience periods of unemployment of more than four months under current policies. In this context, it is a welcome development that the official labour market figures published by the CSO recently indicated that the number of young unemployed at the end of 2012, at 59,000, a reduction of almost 9,000 on the same time a year earlier. It is to be hoped that this is the beginning of a sustained downward movement in youth unemployment as the economy recovers. Even so, the implementation of a guarantee will, almost certainly, require an expansion in the range of opportunities currently on offer to young people in the form of further education and training, internships, subsidised private-sector recruitment, and supports for self-employment.

In this regard the State already provides a significant number of initiatives which are of relevance to young people and the Department of Social Protection took steps in Budget 2013 to increase funding and places for schemes such as JobBridge, Community Employment, TÚS and a new state employment scheme in the local Government sector. In total an additional 10,000 places will be provided. Other relevant provision is made through the training and education programmes delivered through FÁS and the further education sector.

The size and the timescale for any additional provision that is both desirable and feasible, over and above that outlined above, will be established over the coming months.

In this context, the Government intends to work with all relevant stakeholders to maximise the impact of a youth guarantee in Ireland. We have sought funding from the European Commission for a proposed pilot Youth Guarantee Scheme (YGS) in the Ballymun area of north Dublin, and numerous organisations (e.g. IBEC, Ballymun Job Centre, National Youth Council of Ireland) have agreed to participate in this pilot. We are currently waiting to hear from the European Commission as to whether or not our application has been successful. We have been informed that a final decision on our application will be made by the end of June.

Subject to approval from the Commission, the proposed Ballymun YGS pilot will look to develop an activation approach tailored to the needs of young people. It is intended that the Ballymun pilot YGS will, in respect of the target group of young people, guarantee access to career guidance/assistance leading to identification of an individual career plan for the young unemployed person with follow-through to training, education, work experience or full-time employment. Depending on the needs of the young individual the steps in the career plan might include personal assessment, job search assistance, skills training, work experience internships, but the objective in all cases will be to lead the young person to employment placement or further education or training. A particular focus of the pilot YGS will be to involve, and build links with, employers in the locality and the immediate hinterland in order to ensure that the guidance and training elements of the YGS are tailored to the needs of the local labour market and also to generate work placement/experience opportunities for the YGS participants.