Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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179. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the extent of youth unemployment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26249/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Government policy to reduce unemployment is twofold. First, through policies set out in the Action Plan for Jobs, to create an environment in which business can succeed and create jobs; and second, through Pathways to Work to ensure that as many of these new jobs and other vacancies that arise in our economy are filled by people taken from the Live Register, including young unemployed people.

To date, these policies have been effective in reducing youth unemployment. The Irish youth unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of 31.0% (76,000) in Q2 2012 to 13.7% (24,300) in Q1 2017, bringing this rate from well above the EU average in 2012 to well below the EU average of 17.3% at the latter date (latest Eurostat data available). This places Ireland as one of the best performing Member States in terms of reducing its youth unemployment rate.

These trends indicate that together with improvements in the labour market and economic recovery, our approach to youth employment, which focuses in the first instance on enhancing processes and policies for assisting young unemployed people to find and secure sustainable jobs, has been relatively successful.

I am confident these measures, and continuing economic recovery, will support further reductions in youth unemployment and add to the substantial improvements that have already been seen over the last few years.