Vol. 374 No. 5
asked the Minister for Labour (a) the number of 16 to 18 year olds who have been given places on training schemes, work experience courses or employment incentive schemes to date this year and (b) the comparable number of places allocated to 16 to 18 year olds in the last two years.
2.
asked the Minster for Labour the reason young persons who are not on the live register have been excluded from participation in AnCO training schemes or National Manpower placements; if he will reverse this decision; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
26.
asked the Minister for Labour if it is the Government's intention that those under 18 years of age will be excluded from participation in certain training-work experience-temporary employment programmes; to what programmes this restriction applies or will apply and further, if he regards this proposal as equitable; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1, 2 and 26 together.
In a situation of limited resources it is necessary, despite, the difficulties, to define priorities for action. In the Manpower area, my major priorities are to help the long term unemployed and early school leaver experiencing difficulty in entering the labour market.
As regards the long term unemployed, we have this year introduced a more structured approach to assisting people through the Jobsearch programme. As a result, a significant number of places on existing Manpower programmes is being reserved for Jobsearch participants identified by the Department of Social Welfare and referred to the National Manpower Service. To ensure that those unemployed for a longer term, benefit from the programme a live register qualification is essential.
As regards school leavers experiencing employment difficulties, my priority has been to maintain the assistance given under the social guarantee for youth with little or no qualifications. The main programmes are the skills foundation and workshops in AnCO. Deputies will be aware of the operation of these programmes and the benefits they offer to young people. I am concerned that claims that the agencies have stopped recruiting young people under 18 may reduce young people's motivation to come forward for these programmes. I would like to assure early or unqualified school leavers that they will continue to enjoy priority access to relevant programmes.
As far as employment schemes are concerned, Teamwork continues to make places available to young people under 18. While the social employment and enterprise schemes have never been open to persons under 18, a live register qualification was introduced to the employment incentive scheme from 2 June 1987 and the work experience programme has been suspended. The numbers of 16 to 18 year olds who have been given places on Manpower programmes since 1985 are as follows:
|
1987 to end Sept. |
(full year) 1986 |
(full year) 1985 |
|
|
Work Experience Programme |
2,600 |
3,380 |
4,949 |
|
Employment Incentive Scheme |
965 |
3,354 |
4,000 |
|
YEA (including ACOT Certificate in Farming) |
334 |
1,076 |
669 |
|
CERT |
869 |
798 |
719 |
|
AnCO (estimates) |
6,750 |
10,120 |
10,380 |
|
(9 months) |
(9 months) |
An age breakdown for Teamwork is not readily available and would take a very considerable amount of time to compile.
Will the Minister accept that there is abundant evidence that those who find it most difficult to obtain employment are those who leave the educational system early? In those circumstances how does he justify putting impediments in the way of their obtaining training and temporary employment opportunities? Surely, by any standards, this is a group who have a claim on the services.
I agree with Deputy Birmingham that it is the people who leave school early who have the greatest obstacles to overcome, and I am anxious to try to do something about it. In the first place, young people should not be leaving school until they are 15 years at least, but that is not what happens. What is on offer to people leaving before the age of 18, are workshop courses and skills foundation courses, lasting for six months, if they are lucky to get on a course. After that they revert back to the role of an early school leaver with no advantages. I announced during the summer that, in conjunction with the Department of Education, we will endeavour to structure a proper programme. First, it should be said that, at all costs young people should be discouraged from dropping out of the educational system because the statistics prove that there is very little future for people dropping out at a young age. They get off to a bad start and it is difficult to reverse the trend later. What happens is that they spend six months on a course, then a year or two doing nothing and then on to another course, perhaps a Teamwork course and later on another course. After all that they have still failed to advance themselves by getting any kind of sustainable job or qualification. What I have announced is that we should set up a scheme for people who drop out of school at a young age, lasting one, two or three years. If a person of 15 in the educational system requires three years of full time education to make the break from school to work, surely a person from a disadvantaged area requires longer than six months? For that reason I think some of the present resources are not being used to the best advantage.
The Minister's plans for the future are very interesting. Will he confirm that the effect of his announcement in the present context is that those young people who have left the educational system who are under 18 years of age will be condemned to enforced idleness? Whatever plans he has for the future, the effect of his decision is that they will not be able to avail of training opportunities or temporary employment opportunities that were previously open to them. The effect of that is that when they apply for a vacancy, already disadvantaged by the fact that they have left the educational system at an early age, they now suffer the further disadvantage of having to admit to an employer that they have been through a prolonged period of idleness.
The main courses, as the Deputy knows, are the social guarantee places in AnCO, that is for disadvantaged area school leavers, and they are being maintained at the present levels. The programmes catering for these trainees would be the skills foundation for group/intermediate certificate holders and workshops for unqualified early school leavers. The relevant figures in respect of the skills foundation programme up to the end of September this year was 764; the figure for the same period last year was 784 and the previous year it was 359. For the workshop course the figure is 1,624 as against 1,488 last year and 1,397 the previous year. I would not accept that the most disadvantaged people are being hit. Under the enterprise employment incentive scheme there is now a period where early leavers would have to be on the dole so they cannot take advantage of that scheme. But there is also considerable evidence to show that in the past employers used that scheme to take on young people and get a grant from the State. I am not saying it was abused in all cases, but there is an argument that the money should be used for better structured programmes and that is what I am going to do.
In relation to Question No. 2, will the Minister indicate whether he accepts there are quite a number of young people who are not on the live register simply because they will not get any benefit by being on it? They are either means-tested out of assistance or indeed the assistance they would receive is so low that it would not pay the bus fare to get into the labour exchange. Does the Minister not think that, as a consequence, the regulations which preclude them from availing of AnCO or Manpower services are an unfair discrimination against them?
There is a disadvantaged group to be catered for. I accept that. What we are endeavouring to do is to spend the resources we have in the best way possible. I do not know if the people the Deputy has referred to would not be on the live register. We are talking about people under 18.
I am talking about people over 18.
I am not sure if there would be many of them in the social guarantee category. If so, they would be eligible for the AnCO courses. I do not know what the statistics are, but I have read reports that people over 18 who are means-tested out of the system would not be the most disadvantaged.
They are means-tested on their parents' incomes rather than on their need for a job or training. Surely, that is unfair discrimination. Equally, it discriminates against women who up until now may have worked at home and, therefore, are not on the live register. They may want to re-enter the labour force or acquire some training to enable them to re-enter the labour force. They are a second group who are discriminated against by these regulations.
They would not be excluded from all the courses, only some of them. The Teamwork scheme which is a very attractive — or at least popular — scheme with those over 18 years and under 25 years has a requirement that a person must have been unemployed for at least six months and registered for at least four weeks with the National Manpower Service. Being on the live register is not a requirement. The category which the Deputy referred to continually take up that scheme. They would be excluded from taking part in the employment incentive scheme or any of the other schemes which have a stipulation that one must be on the live register. Those who are aged over 18 years and under 25 years are still eligible for AnCO training courses in the normal way and they can apply to take part in the Teamwork scheme. The employment incentive scheme is the only one from which they are excluded.
Could they not——
A brief question, Deputy, as I want to hear both Deputy Colley and Deputy Birmingham.
A woman who has been working at home and who wishes to sign on at the labour exchange is told she may not do so because she has not registered with Manpower. She then goes to Manpower and is refused because she has not registered in the labour exchange. Therefore, what does she do?
I take it you are talking about a person who is aged over 18 years and who is not on the live register?
Yes. She wishes to sign on the live register but is refused because she has to prove that she is available for work. She has to produce evidence that she has registered with the National Manpower Service. They say they are sorry but she cannot register with them because she has not signed on the live register.
Therefore, you are asking what does a person do then in order to apply for a scheme. A person——
Not to apply for a scheme but how they would become eligible for benefit or assistance.
That is a question for the Minister for Social Welfare. I am not responsible for someone who is trying to get unemployment assistance. The question which the Deputy initially asked of me was how a person such as that would get on to a training scheme.
How does a person such as that register with the National Manpower Service which is the agency for placing people in work, presumably in whatever work is there? The National Manpower Service just does not deal with placements——
This is getting untidy. We now have Deputies asking questions without even rising in their places.
I would like to commend the Minister for his concern for the long term unemployed. I have been concerned about them for a long time. As a result of the moves the Minister has taken, the reduction in the number of places available to 16 year olds to 18 year olds has amounted to approximately 6,000, if one takes all the schemes for which the Minister has given figures. Would the Minister not agree that this is, in effect, a cosmetic exercise to reduce numbers on the live register? Only those over the age of 18 years are eligible for entry on to the live register. Therefore, if you take them off the live register and place them on courses the numbers will be reduced. I am very concerned that those aged between 16 and 18 years of age who have no vote and cannot express their——
This is becoming a very long question and is tending to be a speech.
I am just coming to the end. Essentially, these young people have no voice. They have been taken off the schemes with those on the live register replacing them. Would the Minister not agree that this disregards their rights and the need to cater for them?
I can assure the Deputy that this is not a cosmetic exercise and it is not an attempt to clear out some of those on the live register. While the Jobsearch scheme could be regarded as an attempt at shaking up the live register, that was not its prime purpose. However it may have been one of its effects. Over 100,000 people will be interviewed this year for the Jobsearch programme. There is a great demand for courses by those who are over the age of 25 years and those who are long term unemployed. Unlike the last three or four years, there has been a much higher take-up by the long term unemployed of courses they have traditionally not gone for. The figure for this year will be more or less similar to the one for the last couple of years but next year there will be a reduction in the number of places available because of the cutbacks. The expenditure for this year amounts to £57 million and 19,831 places will be available through AnCO, the Youth Employment Agency and CERT. This figure is similar to that in recent years.
A Cheann Comhairle——
It will have to be a very brief question. I have dwelt over-long on these questions.
We are dealing with three questions.
I want to get on to other questions which are also very important.
There is no way the Minister can deny that there is a reduction in the number——
A question please, Deputy Colley.
Would the Minister not agree that the numbers went down from a figure of 5,000 to 2,600 to date? The Youth Employment Agency figures have gone down from a figure last year of 1,776 to 334. There is no doubt that 16 year olds to 18 year olds——
The Deputy is imparting information rather than seeking it.
The Minister in his earlier reply justified the decision to exclude this age group from the employment incentive scheme, which is a scheme whereby employers receive a premium for increasing their workforce, on the basis that there is some evidence to indicate that in the past some employers received payments for taking on people that they would have taken on anyway and to that extent it was wasteful expenditure. Would he accept that that argument, if it is one of validity, applies to the taking on of people of any age whatsoever? Would he not further accept that in the case of this category composed of people who have left the educational system at an early age and a category which is now going to be disadvantaged in regard to training, it is very necessary that employers should be given an incentive to make their selection for whatever vacancy exists from among that category lest we create a hard core of unemployed young people?
First, the reason that certain employers, not to generalise, take people from that category is because they get a grant from the State and then add a very small amount of money to that, something which they could not do with older people. Secondly, I would far prefer to work towards other uses of the money rather than, as Deputy Kemmy was saying earlier, work experience, social guarantee, CERT and AnCO programmes, to have some type of rationale for people who drop out of the educational system at 14 and 15 years of age. All that I can offer at present is a six months' course. These young people leave school to get money, which is the subject matter of a later question. They spend six months on the course and go back out into the world as young school leavers with no future. This system has been getting us nowhere with regard to helping such people. The system is fundamentally wrong.
This is a very brief supplementary question.
I hope so, Deputy.
With regard to those who have an opportunity to participate in social guarantee programmes, skills foundation courses and so on, would the Minister accept that to date in many cases the progression has been from there into mainstream trading and that if one excludes that option from many young people there is a real danger that the money spent at the first stage on the skills foundation course will be absolutely wasted? The period of the skills foundation course will be followed up by a period of enforced idleness.
I would agree with the Deputy. That is why I explained at the outset that there must be a structured follow-on; otherwise what he has said would be correct.
There is no evidence of that follow-on.
