Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 5 November 2013
432. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Social Protection if the €32 million projected savings arising from the changes to jobseeker's allowance for the under 26 year olds in budget 2014 will be spent to provide additional labour activation measures for the under 25s; if she will outline these additional measures; and the number of persons who will benefit from these measures. [45755/13]
View answer433. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Social Protection if she intends to combine and ring-fence the €14 million youth guarantee allocation announced in budget 2014 with the €32 million savings arising from the reduction in jobseeker's allowance payments to the 22 to 25 age group. [45756/13]
View answer438. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Social Protection the number of extra labour activation places that will be provided by her Department in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 to the under 25 age group; and the total cost of these places. [45761/13]
View answer468. Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide a detailed breakdown per programme and scheme for youth employment initiatives comprising the €46 million which was included in press briefing from her Department on 15 October 2013; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45820/13]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 432, 433, 438 and 468 together.
In order to develop and implement a plan to give effect to the EU recommendation for a Youth Guarantee in Ireland, the Department of Social Protection has set up an interdepartmental Youth Guarantee Implementation Group with officials and programme managers from the Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. The terms of reference for this group are to review the current range of youth employment services in Ireland, to assess what measures are appropriate to deliver the Youth Guarantee in Ireland and to develop an implementation plan for approval of Government and transmission to the EU before the end of the year.
As an initial step towards preparing for implementation of the guarantee, provision has already been made in Budget 2014 for:
- increasing provision under the JobsPlus scheme for 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
- 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
- the Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation making funds available to young entrepreneurs via Micro finance Ireland and other business start-up schemes.
In aggregate this involves an expenditure of c €46m on the initiatives announced in Budget 2014.
With regard to the funding of this expenditure, Deputies will be aware that the Department of Social Protection is reducing its expenditure by a total of €290m in 2014. This saving is being achieved across a range of subheads and facilitates the increased provision of places for young people within the overall Government spending limits.
In addition to these provisions in Budget 2014, young people will continue to benefit from places already available under schemes such as the Back to Education Allowance scheme, JobBridge, VTOS and Youthreach, as well as the provision of training programmes for unemployed people funded by Solas.
In total it is expected that these programmes will provide over 91,000 opportunities for new participants in 2014. Of these places just over 20,200 are specifically earmarked for young people. This represents an increase of 4,000 places earmarked for young people over 2013, by additional provision on JobBridge, Tús and JobsPlus. In addition young people will continue to have access to other full time schemes totalling c. 58,000 places.
No decisions have been taken as yet with respect to provision for 2015 and later years.
