I propose to take Questions Nos. 221, 222 and 252 together.
Official labour market figures published by the CSO recently indicate that the number of unemployed people aged under 25 in Ireland has fallen by 10,000 on the same time a year earlier to 54,000. The unemployment rate for young people has fallen from 29.7% to 26.6% over the same period. This downward movement in unemployment differs from the trend in the EU as a whole, where youth unemployment has continued to rise. In the most recent 12-month period, virtually all the decline in youth unemployment was accounted for by a fall in the number of young people who were out of work for a year or more. It is to be hoped that this trend will continue as the economy recovers. However youth unemployment continues to present a major challenge for Ireland as it does for most Member States.
Recognising the urgency required in tackling the challenge of youth joblessness, the EPSCO Council quickly agreed on the Recommendation on a Youth Guarantee in February. The Government and my Department were at the forefront of securing agreement on the adoption of the EU Council Recommendation on the Youth Guarantee.
The Recommendation is that Member States should:
Ensure that all young people under the age of 25 years receive a good-quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education.
As part of the European Council agreement on the 2014 – 2020 EU Budget, it was decided, in association with the agreement on the Youth Guarantee, to provide €6 billion for a new Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) for regions with particularly high levels of youth unemployment. This funding will consist of €3 billion from the European Social Fund and an additional €3 billion from a new Youth Employment budget line. At the EU level, the Irish Presidency is supporting proposals for payments of the €6bn youth employment initiative to be frontloaded. These proposals will be discussed under my chairmanship at the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) in Luxembourg this week and will subsequently form part of the discussions at Heads of State level.
It is recognised, both in the Recommendation itself and more generally, that the pace of implementation must take account of the scale of the youth unemployment and inactivity challenge and consider the fiscal capacity of each Member State. At the same time, Member States should take all possible measures to ensure that the Recommendation is swiftly implemented.
In these circumstances, it is suggested that the best way of maintaining the momentum generated by the adoption of the Recommendation would be for each Member State now to commit to adopting, by the end of 2013, concrete plans for the implementation of the Guarantee.
For our own part, the Government will now review the current range of youth employment policies in Ireland to assess what measures will need to be taken to commence the implementation of the Guarantee. It is intended to produce a concrete plan for the implementation of the Guarantee before the end of 2013. The Government intends to work with all relevant stakeholders to maximise the impact of a Youth Guarantee in Ireland.
The scale and nature of any additional measures required for the implementation of a Guarantee at national level will depend on the trend in youth unemployment, and in particular the number of young people likely to experience periods of unemployment of more than four months under current policies. While recent trends have been positive in this regard, the implementation of a Guarantee will, almost certainly, require an expansion in the range of opportunities currently on offer to young people in the form of further education and training, internships, subsidised private-sector recruitment, and supports for self-employment.
Development of an implementation plan will include identification of the costs of implementation, and how it is envisaged that these will be met (how much can be provided from domestic sources, and what is the likely need from EU funds, e.g. ESF and YEI).
In terms of a ‘bottom up approach’ to implementation, we have sought funding from the European Commission for a proposed pilot Youth Guarantee project in the Ballymun area of north Dublin. Numerous organisations, such as IBEC, Ballymun Job Centre, National Youth Council of Ireland, have agreed to participate in this pilot. A Local Implementation Group will be central to the Ballymun project. The Local Implementation Team will comprise representatives of relevant stakeholders, including the Department of Social Protection, FAS, CDVEC, Ballymun Whitehall Area Partnership, Ballymun Job Centre/Local Employment Service Network, EQUAL Youth, North Dublin Chamber of Commerce, Ballymun for Business, and a representative young person (to be identified). The lessons learned from this local implementation approach will then be disseminated at both a national and EU level.
