Written answers

Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Department of Social Protection

Youth Guarantee

Photo of Denise MitchellDenise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein)
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4. To ask the Minister for Social Protection for a progress report regarding the national implementation of the Youth Guarantee. [9107/16]

Photo of Joan BurtonJoan Burton (Dublin West, 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.

As under services such as Intreo, Youthreach, VTOS, PLC programmes, JobsPlus and JobBridge, Ireland already had many of the recommended component parts of a Youth Guarantee, the main approach in Ireland is to prioritise access to these existing supports for young people, who become unemployed, with the objective of ensuring that they have an opportunity for employment, further education or work experience within the recommended period of four months as per the EU council recommendation.

The key objective is to help newly unemployed young people find and secure sustainable jobs. In this regard there is monthly engagement with young people by case officers to assist young people to prepare, review and, if appropriate, revise personal progression plans. As part of this process additional supports may be provided, both through existing schemes and through youth-specific measures. Most such offers (over 70%) are in existing further education or training programmes. Others are in existing community-based employment programmes such as CE, Gateway and Tús. Overall, over 19,100 opportunities were taken up on the relevant programmes in 2015.

Pathways to Work 2016 -2020, published in January 2016,commits to continuing to implement the actions set out in the Youth Guarantee Implementation Plan (YGIP). In addition, it commits to four additional actions:

- Increase the share of workplace-based interventions;

- Restructure First Steps (a work experience programme for particularly disadvantaged young people);

- Ensure monthly engagement with young unemployed, at a minimum, is consistently maintained; and

- Implement the Defence Forces Skills for Life employment support programme.

The operation and coverage of the Youth Guarantee will be reviewed in mid-2016, based on data on outcomes for young people who became unemployed up to the end of 2015, and in the light of developments in the economy and in the labour market in the context of the overall Pathways to Work strategy.

Implementation of the Youth Guarantee is reviewed independently by the EU. Ireland has been reviewed twice (in December 2014 and in December 2015) on its implementation of measures to tackle youth unemployment as part of the Youth Guarantee, through the EU Semester multi-lateral surveillance process within the EMCO (Employment Committee). For the December 2015 review, EMCO concluded:

- EMCO welcomes the efforts to implement the YG in Ireland and the positive results being experienced in relation to youth unemployment. These positive outcomes should be continued together with efforts to reduce the timespan within which the offer to young people is made.

- Ireland has introduced several new programmes in 2015, in addition to the pre-existing programmes, offering employment, work experience and training/developmental internship opportunities to the youth. Programmes are relevant to address youth labour market challenges and address the issues underlying the YG. EMCO is looking forward to overall evaluation results of the new initiatives. Substantial progress has been made in the FET/VET sector and apprenticeships, aimed at ensuring their relevance to labour market needs. Ireland has also taken important steps toward reforming the PES and providing a more effective PES engagement process. As regards the 2014 data collection exercise, data cover those aged 18-24 and in receipt of unemployment benefits.

The following table details the original 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.

These data exclude an estimated 24,000 places provided for young people through PLC courses and apprenticeships. Although not reserved for unemployed jobseekers, these PLC and apprenticeship places, together with the wide range of vocational third-level courses provided for young people, nevertheless contribute to the spirit of the guarantee.

Programme take-up on Youth Guarantee-related programmes

End of Year 2015 (information available up to 11thFebruary 2016)

ProgrammeExpected full-year intake2015 information to dateNote
Youthreach3,300



1684Expected full year intake combines Youthreach and Community Training Centres.



Youthreach data to end September 2015
Community Training Centres1528
JobBridge 5,0002,296
Tús1,0001,379
JobsPlus ( including JobPlus Youth)1,500676February -December 2015
Momentum2,0001,066
BTEA (excl Momentum)3,3002,900
BTWEA200146
VTOS500n/a Enrolment begins in September
Former FÁS/SOLAS*9,5006,629Based on Specific Skills Training, Traineeship, Bridging & Local Training Initiative starters.
County Enterprise Board Youth Entrepreneurship Training and Mentoring supports.700This programme has been superseded by Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE) 2014/5 competition1
Micro Finance Ireland (MFI) youth loans 93MFI defines ‘youth’ loans as loans for those aged 18-25. 14 have been advanced since MFI began operations, including 2 in 2016.
International Work Experience and Training2508
Gateway450144
Community Employment500715
Total 28,35019,171Excluding where figures are not available

1. The IBYE is an entrepreneurship support measure aimed at encouraging young people to start their own businesses and accordingly covers a wider age range (from 18-30). There were 1,398 applicants in 2015 and 1,018 in 2014.

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