Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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422. To ask the Minister for Social Protection further to Parliamentary Question No. 157 of 15 May 2013, the total number of young people expected to participate in, and the expected start date of the youth guarantee scheme; if she intends to expand this scheme to allow young persons who are not in receipt of a social welfare payment to engage in the scheme; her plans to develop a more comprehensive state-wide youth guarantee scheme and the date on which she will do so. [26910/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Under the EU Commission’s recent call for proposals for preparatory actions under the 'Youth Guarantee', the Department of Social Protection in conjunction with local groups has sought EU funding to pilot a Youth Guarantee Scheme (YGS) in a local area. The pilot YGS will look to develop an activation approach tailored to the needs of young people in a deprived urban area and then test it within a specific geographical location (Ballymun). It is proposed that the Pilot YGS in Ballymun will apply to an intake of c 90 young people per month over a 12 month period, or 1,080 persons in all.

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. In the event of the grant being awarded by the Commission, it is anticipated that the pilot scheme will start within four months of the signature of the grant agreement.

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.

All young people who are coming on to the Live Register during the period of the pilot and who are registering at the Ballymun office as well as those young people who have already been unemployed for some time, including those who are not in receipt of a payment, will be targeted for inclusion in this pilot scheme.

With regard to the government’s plan to develop a comprehensive nation-wide youth guarantee, the government will review the current range of youth employment and training 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. It is intended to produce a concrete plan for the implementation of the guarantee before the end of 2013.

The scale and nature of the measures required 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 in Q1 2013 was, at 54,000, down 10,000 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, training, internships, subsidised private-sector recruitment, and supports for self-employment.

In this regard the State already provides a significant number of places which are available 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. The Department of Education also made provision for the new MOMENTUM programme which is providing 6,500 new training places many of which will be taken up by young people. A new recruitment incentive – JobsPlus – has also been developed by my Department and was approved by the Government as part of the Action Plan for Jobs. This incentive will be launched for availability in July 2013.