Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

281. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the steps he will take to address the issue of youth unemployment which now stands at 15%; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16034/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Government’s primary strategy to tackle youth unemployment is through policies to create the environment for a strong economic recovery by promoting competitiveness and productivity.

Reflecting the impact of government policy, and the overall improvement in the labour market, youth unemployment continues to fall with a rate of 15.0% (27,900) in May 2016 (as estimated by CSO), compared to 20.8% (39,100) in April 2015 and a peak of over 31.3% (70,900) in 2012.

Although the labour market situation is improving considerably as the recovery continues, the Government recognises the importance of a continued focus on measures to facilitate the young unemployed back into work. This is the rationale behind the Government’s Pathways to Work 2016-2020 strategy (published January 2016) and the Youth Guarantee plan (published January 2014).

As under services such as Intreo, Youthreach, VTOS, PLC programmes, and JobBridge, Ireland already had many of the recommended component parts of a Youth Guarantee as envisaged in the relevant EU Recommendation, the main approach in Ireland is to prioritise access to these existing supports for young people, who become unemployed. The objective is to ensure 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 reserved places on 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 continues to prioritise these measures for the young unemployed and additionally commits to: increasing the share of workplace-based interventions for youth unemployed; ensuring that monthly engagement, at a minimum, is consistently applied and maintained; restructuring the First Steps programme; and implementing the Defence Forces Skills for Life programme.

I am satisfied these measures will help to address youth unemployment.