Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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374. To ask the Minister for Social Protection further to Parliamentary Question No. 466 of 5 November 2013, if she will provide further details on the 10,000 training places for young unemployed persons including the budget associated with this training; the length of the training courses; the location of these training courses; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50422/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 320, 358 and 374 together.

In order to develop and implement a plan to give effect to the EU recommendation for a Youth Guarantee in Ireland, 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, the Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. The terms of reference for this group are to review the current range of youth employment services in Ireland, to assess what measures are appropriate to deliver the Youth Guarantee in Ireland and to develop an implementation plan for approval of Government and transmission to the EU before the end of the year.

As an initial step towards preparing for implementation of the guarantee, provision was made in the 2014 Budget for hanging the eligibility criteria for Jobs Plus to make it easier for young people to qualify for the scheme; an additional intake of 1,500 young people on to the very successful JobBridge scheme; ensuring that 1,000 places on the Tús scheme are targeted at young people; developing a pilot programme to support young unemployed people to take up opportunities under schemes such as Your First EURES Job; ring-fencing a minimum of 2,000 training places for under-25s by the Department of Education and Skills, under a follow-up to the successful Momentum programme that operated in 2013, with income support for participants being provided by my Department; the Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation making funds available to young entrepreneurs via Micro finance Ireland and other business start-up schemes.

In addition to these provisions in Budget 2014, young people will continue to benefit from places already available under schemes such as the Back to Education Allowance scheme, JobBridge, VTOS and Youthreach, as well as the provision of training programmes for unemployed people funded by Solas.

In total it is expected that these activation programmes will provide over 91,000 opportunities for new participants in 2014 of all ages. Of these places just over 20,200 are specifically earmarked for young people. However, the actual level of participation by young people is expected to exceed this – reaching at least 27,500. A breakdown of these figures by programme is presented in tabular form below.

Estimated expected participation, activation programmes, 2014