Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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221. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if there has been a review of the impact of the reductions applied to welfare benefits for persons under 26 years of age in terms of homelessness, destitution and suicide; and if not, his plans to conduct such a review. [10671/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Lower weekly rates for younger jobseekers were first introduced in the Supplementary Budget in 2009 and further extended in subsequent Budgets up to 2014. The rationale for these rates is to prevent young unemployed people from entering longer term welfare dependency by providing a strong financial incentive to take up a job, or a training or education programme. It should be noted that jobseekers who are under 26 years of age who have children are not subject to the reduced rates of jobseeker's allowance.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) publishes poverty rates for all young people aged 15 to 24 inclusive. They do not separately report poverty rates for young people in receipt of jobseeker's allowance.

The consistent poverty rate for all young people aged 15 to 24 was 15.6% in 2015. The ‘at risk of poverty rate’ for that cohort which was 28.3% in 2012, fell to 27.7% in 2015 and the ‘deprivation rate’ for that cohort fell from 32.5% to 31.0% in the same period.

Poverty is strongly linked to unemployment. The number of young people under the age of 26 on the Live Register has fallen from 48,900 to 29,300 over the two years from December 2014 to December 2016, a reduction of 40.1%. Similarly, the monthly unemployment rate for 15 to 24 year olds fell from 20.3% to 15.2% over the same period, a reduction of 25%.

It is positive that unemployment among young people is falling at a faster rate than among the general population. I am determined that we help more young people in the most effective way possible, by supporting them into the workforce, education or training.

For that reason, on Budget Day 2017 I announced additional incentives for young people to participate in education. From September 2017 when a young jobseeker participates on the Back to Education scheme, he or she will be entitled to receive the full maximum rate of jobseeker's payment, which will then be €193 per week, as against the €160 which they are currently on. This is the largest single increase in the social welfare package and demonstrates our commitment to young jobseekers who seek to enhance their skills.

As part of my Budget 2017 package, I also announced changes to the minimum contribution for young persons in receipt of rent supplement and reduced rates of weekly social welfare from January 2017, of which there are approximately 500 cases.

The minimum rent contribution which a young single person aged 18-24 years receiving a payment of €100 per week is expected to pay has been reduced from €30 to €10 per week. The minimum contribution for those young people in receipt of a weekly payment of €144 or €160 per week has been reduced from €30 to €20 per week. Similarly, reductions have been applied to the rate of contribution for couples. The minimum contribution for these persons will remain at these new lower levels when the increase in the weekly payment rates is applied in March 2017.

Under the Supplementary Welfare Allowance scheme, the Department may make a single Exceptional Needs Payment (ENP) to help meet essential, once-off and unforeseen expenditure which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their weekly income- including support towards rent deposits. In 2016, the Department made approximately 2,800 payments of rent deposits/rent in advance at a cost of almost €1.8 million, of which almost 570 payments at a cost of over €371,000 were made to persons aged under 26 years. This form of assistance is very important to those on low incomes who are at risk of, or who are homeless, or who rely on the private rented market to meet their housing needs.

The review of jobseeker's allowance rates for young persons under 26 years of age which is currently underway will examine the effectiveness of the reduced rates in encouraging young jobseekers to avail of education, training, employment programmes and opportunities.

I am committed to ensuring my Department identifies effective measures to incentivise and support young people in finding and securing sustainable jobs. The best way to do this is through engagement processes and by incentivising them to avail of educational and training opportunities, thereby enhancing their employment prospects.