Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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1417. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if an allocation under the new youth employability scheme will be made to an organisation (details supplied), given that the special purpose grant allocated to the organisation for its Employability Support Programme expired at the end of 2023; if he will provide a timeline for the allocation of such funding; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1248/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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€77.95 million is being allocated in Budget 2024 to youth services, an increase of €5 million, or 6.8%, on the 2023 budget. As part of this allocation, €1million is being provided to establish a new Youth Employability Initiative. The aim of the Youth Employability Initiative will be to engage and support young people aged 15 to 24 years who are not currently in education, training or employment.

This is a new scheme and not a continuation of the previous scheme. An evaluation of the previous scheme, the ‘Targeted Youth Employability Support Initiative 2021-2022’, was commissioned in 2023. The recommendations of that evaluation will inform the development of the new scheme. It is intended the scheme will open for applications in Q1 2024 and the application process will be carried out by the ETBs.