I propose to take Questions Nos. 285, 286, 304 and 305 together.
In order to incentivise young jobseekers to avail of education and training opportunities and to minimise the risk of them becoming welfare dependent from a young age, changes are being made to the rates payable in respect of persons under 26 years of age. Such rates in respect of younger jobseekers were first introduced in 2009.
By extending the €100 jobseeker's allowance rate to ages 22, 23 and 24 the changes provide that claimants in this age bracket will be €60 better off if they engage in education or training such as the back to education programme as they will then receive €160 per week. Persons aged 25, had previously been subject to no financial incentive measure, will now receive €144 per week. These individuals will generally be €16 better off if they engage in education or training as they will now receive €160 per week.
Similarly, interns participating on JobBridge receive an allowance of €50 per week on top of their existing social welfare entitlement for the period of their internship. Arrangements provide that a claim for jobseeker's allowance is linked to any claim made within the previous 12 months, so persons returning to jobseeker's allowance following a 6 or 9 month internship will revert to the appropriate rate applying before their internship.
It is anticipated that the changes will affect 13,767 persons in 2014, rising to 31,577 persons per annum over time.
This decision was made on foot of on-going consideration of unemployment and incentives policy by Government. In making such decisions it is standard practice for all appropriate advice to be considered. The changes are not discriminatory but rather are targeted measures aimed at protecting young people from welfare dependency.
In preparation for the forthcoming implementation of the Youth Guarantee, Budget 2014 contained an additional €46 million to support a number of initiatives aimed at young people. These include:- reducing the threshold (in terms of duration of unemployment) for JobsPlus eligibility from 12 months – to 6 months or less – in the case of persons aged less than 25 years;- an additional intake of 1,500 young people on to the very successful JobBridge scheme;- ensuring that 1,000 places on the Tús scheme are targeted at young people;- developing a pilot programme to support young unemployed people to take up opportunities under schemes such as Your First EURES Job; and ring-fencing a minimum of 2,000 training places for under-25s by the Department of Education and Skills, under a follow-up to the successful Momentum programme that operated in 2013, with income support for participants being provided by my Department; and furthermore the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation will invest in the region of €2.5m next year in making funds available to young entrepreneurs via Micro finance Ireland and other business start-up schemes.
These measures are in addition to the significant existing spend of approximately €170m per annum on employment, training and further education programmes for young people.
I believe that it is necessary to provide young jobseekers with a strong financial incentive to engage in education or training or to take up employment. If they do not improve their skills, it will be much more difficult for them to avail of job opportunities as the economy recovers and they are at risk of becoming long-term unemployed from a young age.
