Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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60. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection the status of the implementation of the Youth Guarantee, including the number of participants; the number of these who have received employment through the guarantee; and the amount spent implementing the Guarantee to date. [46006/15]

Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The Government's primary strategy to tackle youth unemployment is to create the environment for a strong economic recovery by promoting competitiveness and productivity. Economic recovery will underpin jobs growth and the availability of productive employment for young people.

The Government recognises that as the recovery takes hold, there is a need for additional measures to ensure that as many as possible of the jobs created are taken up by jobseekers and young jobseekers in particular. This is the rationale behind the Government's Pathways to Work strategy and the Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan.

Within this framework, the Youth Guarantee sets a medium-term objective of ensuring that young people receive an offer of employment, education or training within four months of becoming unemployed. The main plank of the guarantee is assistance to young people in finding and securing sustainable jobs. There is monthly engagement with all young jobseekers. For those who do not find employment, additional offers are provided for. Most such offers (over 70%) are in further education or training. Others are in community-based employment programmes such as CE, Gateway and Tus, or through the JobsPlus employment subsidy for private employment.

Overall, the Youth Guarantee provided nearly 25,000 places for young people in 2014. This figure excludes some 24,000 places provided for young people through PLC courses and apprenticeships. These PLC and apprenticeship places, together with the wide range of vocational third-level courses provided for the young, although not reserved for unemployed jobseekers, nevertheless contribute to the spirit of the guarantee.

The following table details the expected full year intake on relevant programmes for 2015 as well the actual number of starters up to the most recent date for which data are available.

Youth Guarantee Progress 2015 Starters

*NB The figures above refer to the cumulative starters under 25 upon entry to the programme, from 1^stJanuary 2015.

Direct measures of employment from the Youth Guarantee process are unavailable. However, of the 61,000 young people entering full unemployment in 2014, 26,200 had exited to employment by June 2015, while an additional 8,100 exits were to unknown destinations, of which a significant proportion are likely to be to employment. An additional 3,600 took up education while 8,800 took up training opportunities. The expectation is that most of those taking up education and training opportunities will find employment on completion of the programmes involved.

Annual expenditure on the core programmes identified in the Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan was estimated at approximately €336 million for 2014, with a further expenditure on other relevant programmes (Apprenticeship and PLC courses) of €192 million. Actual expenditure on participation by young people on this range of programmes in 2015 will depend on the ultimate take-up of places, and can be estimated only after the end of the financial year.