Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 9 July 2013
285. Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Minister for Social Protection if she is satisfied that there was enough progress made on youth unemployment during the Irish Presidency; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31473/13]
View answerYouth 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 EU Council Recommendation on a Youth Guarantee in February. The Irish Presidency was at the forefront of securing agreement on the adoption of the Recommendation. 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 earlier this year, 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.
Proposals supported by the Irish Presidency that payments of the Youth Employment Initiative be front-loaded and all monies provided for this purpose be used in 2014 and 2015 were approved last month. In addition, The European Council agreed last week that margins left available below the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) budgetary ceilings for the years 2014-2017 will be used to constitute a "global margin for commitments" to fund in particular measures to fight youth unemployment. The flexibility means, in effect, that beyond the €6 billion that we reserved in February, there will be substantially more available for the Youth Employment Initiative - according to projections, at least €8 billion in total.
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. 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. Recent trends have been positive in this regard. The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for young people is now just over 26%, down from an average of over 30% last year. The seasonally-adjusted number of young people on the Live Register, at 67,000, is substantially down from the peak of 89,000 reached in late 2009. Even so, 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.
To summarise, significant political progress was made on the issue of youth unemployment during the Irish Presidency. It now remains for the recommendation on the Youth Guarantee to be implemented by individual Member States.
