Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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81. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the extent to which she continues to draw on the EU supports in respect of youth unemployment; the extent to which such funding is instrumental in addressing the issue; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30872/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The cost of employment, training and education programmes for unemployed young people are funded, in the first instance, by the Irish Exchequer. However, it is expected that a number of the programmes included in Ireland’s Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan will meet European Social Fund 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.

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. It is anticipated that actual expenditure will be significantly in excess of that amount over the period concerned. Taking existing and planned provision together, the current estimate of programme uptake by young people in 2014 of approximately 28,000 will involve associated programme costs of €336 million. If all Post-Leaving Certificate course and apprenticeship provision is included, the total programme uptake of approximately 52,000 has associated programme costs of €528 million.

In addition, under the European Commission’s call for proposals for preparatory actions under the 'Youth Guarantee', the Department of Social Protection has obtained EU funding to pilot a Youth Guarantee Scheme in Ballymun. The total cost of the project is EUR 302,279. This includes funding of EUR 250,000 from the European Commission.