Alan Farrell (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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52. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the way she will address the situation whereby young persons aged 24 and under, whose parents earn over the threshold, are ineligible to receive jobseeker's allowance, therefore cannot avail of Government supported work experience schemes and subsequently cannot gain employment due to their lack of experience; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45595/14]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Given the scale of unemployment levels, the key objective of activation policy and labour market initiatives is to offer assistance to those most in need of support in securing work and achieving financial self-sufficiency. This policy objective prioritises scarce resources to those in receipt of qualifying welfare payments, and in particular those who have been receiving such payments for extended periods. Accordingly the employment services and schemes provided by the Department are focused in the first instance on this cohort of unemployed people.

Persons who are unemployed but not in receipt of a social welfare payment are not, however, disqualified from receiving training and employment supports. A range of services are in fact available to such people.

For example employment services, such as advice on job-search activities and the use of online job search tools, are available to people if they register with the Department’s employment services offices, regardless of their social welfare status.

Further, unemployed persons not in receipt of payments may also be eligible to avail of up-skilling opportunities, for example through ETB (formerly FÁS) training for unemployed people, although they are not eligible to receive a training allowance while undertaking the course (they may receive some financial support for travel and meals).

The Work Placement Programme operated by my Department is also open to persons not in receipt of a social welfare payment, although the participant will not receive a payment while on the programme.

An unemployed person who does not qualify for a social welfare payment due to the assessment of their means may be eligible to sign for social insurance contribution credits. Persons who sign for credits for three months (78 days) of the last six months are eligible to participate in the JobBridge programme.

The number of young people who do not qualify for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JA) because of parental means is relatively low. In the most recent twelve-month period for which data are available, some 52,808 awards of JA were made to young people under the age of 25. Over the same period, 1,579 JA claims from young people were disallowed on the grounds that the applicant’s means (from all sources) were deemed to be in excess of the prescribed limits. Disallowances on grounds of means thus represented a maximum of 3% of the claims actually awarded to young people. This would include cases where the means involved were those of the applicant or the applicant’s spouse, not just parental means cases. At present the Department of Social Protection is not planning to change the eligibility criteria for JA.