Written answers
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Department of Social Protection
Youth Guarantee
Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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374. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the amount she will invest in the Youth Guarantee in 2014 and 2015. [2767/14]
Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Youth unemployment is being specifically targeted through our Youth Guarantee initiative.
I will be publishing details of this initiative shortly. However, the table below outlines the expected provision and indicative costs associated with the provision of training and work experience opportunities for under 25s in 2014. Projections for 2015 are not yet available, but expenditure is likely to be on a similar scale to 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 should 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.
Expected participation, activation programmes, 2014
| Programme | Average participation | Inflow of new participants | Expected inflow of young people | Indicative 2014 cost of youth provision (€million) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Youthreach/CTC | 6,000 | 3,300 | 3,300 | 110.0 |
| JobBridge (including planned reserve) | 7,700 | 13,300 | 5,000 | 27.0 |
| Tus | 7,500 | 7,500 | 1,000 | 15.9 |
| JobsPlus | 4,000 | 2,000 | 1,500 | 4.5 |
| Momentum* | 6,500 | 6,500 | 2,000 | 6.1 |
| BTEA (excl Momentum)** | 18,500 | 9,300 | 3,300 | 60.0 |
| BTWEA | 11,000 | 5,500 | 200 | 4.1 |
| VTOS | 5,600 | 2,800 | 500 | 14.3 |
| FAS/Solas | 10,300 | 25,000 | 9,500 | 72.0 |
| CEB youth Entrepreneurship Training and Mentoring supports | 700 | 700 | 1.0 | |
| CEB/MFI micro-loans for young people | 150 | 150 | 2.5 | |
| International Work Experience and Training | 250 | 250 | 250 | 2.5 |
| Gateway | 3,000 | 3,000 | 450 | 2.5 |
| Community Employment | 25,300 | 12,700 | 500 | 14.0 |
| Total | 105,650 | 92,000 | 28,350 | 336.4 |
| Memorandum items: PLCs Apprenticeship | 35,000 8,000 | 32,000 2,500 | 22,000 2,000 | 117.0 75.0 |
| Vocational Third Level | It is estimated that at least 50% of the 41,000 entrants to third level each year are entering courses leading towards defined occupations | N/A | ||
| Overall total | 528.4 (excluding vocational third level) |
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.
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