Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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268. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide an update on the youth guarantee implementation plan; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44399/13]

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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269. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the evidence her Department is drawing upon for the youth guarantee models for best practice, the expert reports and so on; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44400/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 268 and 269 together.

The EU Council recommended that Member States should provide a Youth Guarantee which would 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 Youth 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 Department of Social Protection has set up an interdepartmental Youth Guarantee Implementation Group with officials and programme managers from the Department of Education and Skills, Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation, and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. The terms of reference for this group are to review the current range of youth employment policies in Ireland to assess what measures will need to be taken to commence the implementation of the Guarantee.

The Department held a stakeholders' consultation forum in relation to the Guarantee on October 14, and has also invited further submissions from the bodies that attended.

The Department of Social Protection has also requested the assistance of the OECD in developing the implantation plan. In particular the OECD has been asked to identify best international practice and how it might best be applied to implementation of the Youth Guarantee in Ireland. A delegation from the OECD has already met with stakeholders at the forum mentioned above as well as with a range of relevant public bodies.

The development of the plan will also draw on expert work already carried out by the European Commission over the last few years, and in particular the Commission Staff Working Document (SWD) Accompanying the Proposal for a Council Recommendation on Establishing a Youth Guarantee, published in December 2012. It is intended to produce a concrete plan for the implementation of the Guarantee for consideration by the Government in December before being transmitted to the European Commission by the end of 2013.