Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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70. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the policies she aims to put in place to resolve growing unemployment among young persons and to resolve the high long-term unemployed figures. [30949/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Official figures from the CSO show that both long-term and youth unemployment are actually falling, and not rising as suggested by the Deputy. Since the lowest point of the jobs crisis, the unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of over 15% to 11.6% at present. The latest QNHS figures show that the number of long-term unemployed has fallen from 204,000 (9.5%) in the first quarter of 2012 to 156,000 (7.3%) in the same period this year. The number of unemployed young people has fallen from 64,000 (29.7%) to 47,500 (25.3%) over the same period. The Government’s primary strategy to reduce unemployment has been 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. Employment has risen by about 70,000 since the recovery began in 2012.

Despite the progress that has been made, the Government acknowledges that both youth 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 and the Youth Guarantee, both of which are being led by my Department.

Pathways to Work includes a wide range of programmes and services to help jobseekers back to employment. These include programmes such as JobBridge, 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.

The Statement of Government Priorities 2014 – 2016 commits to the continued roll-out of the Youth Guarantee, building on the successful lessons of the Ballymun Youth Guarantee Pilot Programme. The Youth Guarantee offer of training, education or work experience for those aged 18-24 years after a four month period will be implemented on a phased basis. Its implementation will be facilitated by changes included in recent social welfare legislation.

As an initial step, during 2014 – 2015, all long-term unemployed young people under 25 will be engaged by the Public Employment Service and will receive a Youth Guarantee offer if still unemployed after four months of this engagement process commencing.

Over 28,000 programme places are being provided for unemployed young people in 2014, and detailed breakdown of these has been published in the Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan.