Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1570. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the amount it would cost to fully restore all cuts to jobseeker's allowance for those under 25 years of age. [36408/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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In line with other EU and OECD jurisdictions where such measures feature, reduced rates for younger jobseeker’s allowance recipients were first introduced in 2009 and extended to those under 26 in Budget 2014.

These measures were introduced to protect young people from welfare dependency by providing young jobseekers with a strong financial incentive to engage in education or training or to take up employment. Should a young jobseeker on a reduced jobseeker’s allowance payment participate on an education or training programme they will receive a higher weekly payment of €160. This rate will be further increased to €193 per week from September 2017. With effect from March 2017, rates of jobseeker’s payments were increased for claimants of all ages as a result of measures introduced in Budget 2017.

The CSO’s latest monthly unemployment figures report that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for persons aged 15-24 years was 11.9% in June 2017. This represents a significant decrease of 3.4 percentage points, from 15.3% in April 2016.

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.

The full year cost of increasing the age related reduced jobseeker's rates of €102.70 per week and €147.80 per week to the maximum jobseeker's rate of €193 per week is estimated to be €109.1 million in 2018. It should be noted that this estimate is subject to change over the coming months in the context of emerging trends and associated revision of the estimated numbers of recipients for 2018.

I have no plans for any further increases in rates at present and any such changes could only be considered in a budgetary context.