Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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333. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her views on the report Youth Unemployment in Ireland, the Forgotten Generation by National Youth Council of Ireland. [55216/13]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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334. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she has met with the authors of the report Youth Unemployment in Ireland, the Forgotten Generation by National Youth Council of Ireland to discuss its findings. [55217/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 333 and 334 together.

The National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) report referred to by the Deputy was published in 2010 and pre-dates the formation of the current government. However, I am aware of more up-to-date reports by the NYCI on the issue of youth unemployment, most notably their pre-Budget 2014 submission, which supports the introduction of a Youth Guarantee in Ireland, and their Youth Guarantee Fact Sheet. In addition, the NYCI have had an input into the formulation of the Youth Guarantee. Consultation with stakeholders was identified as a key aspect of the Department’s process for the formulation of a Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan for Ireland and consequently a stakeholders’ forum was convened in October 2013, where the NYCI played an active part and subsequently made a submission. The NYCI are also represented on the National Steering Group of the Ballymun Youth Guarantee Pilot.

I have had active engagement with NYCI during my tenure as Minister for Social Protection. I launched the NYCI book 'Creating a Future for Jobseekers' on 31 March 2011. I also met with the European Youth forum and NYCI on 31 January 2013. More recently, I met with representatives of NYCI on 19 December 2013.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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335. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her plans to specifically target the issue of youth unemployment here; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1044/14]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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363. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her Department's plans to implement the youth guarantee here; the amount of funding allocated for same in 2014; the tangible benefits she believes it will have; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1041/14]

Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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374. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide details of the youth guarantee scheme regarding availability of education training and job experience for those eligible and the availability of required funds and resources to implement the scheme in a progressive manner; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1293/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 335, 363 and 374 together.

The Government’s primary medium-term strategy to tackle youth unemployment is to create the environment for a strong economic recovery by promoting competitiveness and productivity. Economic recovery will underpin jobs growth. Past experience suggests that youth unemployment, which tends to rise relatively rapidly in a downturn, can be expected to fall relatively rapidly during the recovery. There is evidence that this is already occurring – Eurostat estimates that the seasonally-adjusted rate of youth unemployment has fallen from almost 31% in late 2011 to just under 25% at the end of 2013

In addition to promoting medium-term economic recovery, the Government recognises the need for interim measures to support the young unemployed and keep young jobseekers close to the labour market. To this end, youth unemployment is being specifically targeted through our Youth Guarantee initiative. . I will be publishing details of this initiative shortly.

In the meantime, work experience opportunities being provided to the under 25s, in the following table, outlines the expected provision and indicative costs associated with the provision of training and work experience opportunities for under 25s in 2014.

These costs will be funded, in the first instance, by the Irish Exchequer. However, it is expected that a number of these programmes will meet ESF eligibility criteria and will be included in the Youth Employment Initiative application for Ireland. This will permit EU funding to be drawn down in respect of expenditure in 2014 and 2015 to a level that should enable the full YEI allocation for Ireland of €68.1 million in current prices (with a further similar amount in ESF funding) to be taken up over those two years.

Given the way the funding is structured, in order to recoup these amounts from the EU in due course, it will be necessary that we spend, in the first instance, close to €100 million on relevant programmes each year, or close to €200 million in 2014-2015 overall.

As will be clear from the data in the table, it is anticipated that actual expenditure will be significantly in excess of that amount over the period concerned.

Expected participation, activation programmes, 2014

As part of the overall 2014 provision outlined above, and as an initial step towards preparing for implementation of the Guarantee, provision was made in the 2014 Budget for:

- Reducing the threshold (in terms of duration of unemployment) for JobsPlus eligibility from 12 months – to 6 months or less – in the case of persons aged less than 25 years

- 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 the Department of Social Protection

- The Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation making €2.5m available to young entrepreneurs via Micro Finance Ireland and other business start-up schemes.

In total, the provision across these headings in the 2014 Budget comes to €46 million.