Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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9. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she is satisfied with the current level of job activation services provided by her Department. [17573/14]

Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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11. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her plans to address the increasing numbers of long-term unemployed here; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17732/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 and 11 together.

The unemployment rate has fallen to 11.8% – the lowest rate in 5 years – and is down from a peak of just over 15% in 2011. Employment rose by 61,000 during 2013, which represents a year-on-year increase of 3.3%. The Government’s primary support for activation is through policies to create the environment for a strong economic recovery by promoting competitiveness and productivity. Economic recovery will underpin jobs growth. This strategy is working.

Contrary to the impression given in the question that long-term unemployment has been increasing, it has in fact been doing the exact opposite. Long term unemployment, as measured by the QNHS, has fallen from 196,000 at the end of 2011 to 155,000 at the end of 2013, a decline of over 40,000 in less than two years. As a result the long-term unemployment rate had fallen to 7.2% down from a peak of over 9%.

Nevertheless, despite the progress that has been made, the Government recognises that the both overall unemployment and long-term unemployment remain unacceptably high. Hence, the Government also recognises the need for additional activation measures in the interim while the economy recovers. This is the rationale behind the Government’s Pathways to Work strategy which is being led by my Department.

As one example of the impact of the strategy, Pathwaysset a target of moving 75,000 of the 180,800 people who were on the Live Register for over a year (long-term unemployed) at the beginning of 2012, into employment by the end of 2015. By the end of February this year, over 45,000 of this group had already moved into employment, 13,000 of whom had taken up part-time employment.

Pathways to Workincludes a wide range of programmes and services to help jobseekers back to employment. I will be making a table available to Deputies which sets out the level of provision on programmes for 2014, indicating also which programmes are particularly targeted at the long-term unemployed. These include programmes such as JobsBridge, JobsPlus and Momentum introduced by this Government and schemes such as Community Employment and TÚS where we have significantly increased the number of places available.

Furthermore, the Government is putting particular focus on tackling youth unemployment. A cornerstone of the Government’s strategy to get young people into jobs will be the implementation of the Youth Guarantee which was agreed by the EU during the Irish presidency and which will ensure that young people are prioritised for support on the pathway back to employment. This objective is to be achieved, over time, by fastracking Intreo engagement with newly unemployed young people, by allocating extra places on schemes such as TÚS, Momentum and JobBridge for young people and by reducing the qualifying time for access to JobsPlus for young people. The Youth Guarantee is already being piloted in Ballymun involving a partnership of key national and local stakeholders. The findings from this pilot, which is being mainly funded by the European Commission, will feed into the national rollout of the Guarantee.

In summary, Pathways to Work sets out a strategy for the full rollout of a radically reformed public employment service by 2015. I am happy to say that we are currently on target to meet this goal.

Table: Expected participation in activation programmes, 2014