Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 19 November 2013
348. Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Social Protection if the proposed €200 million (details supplied) for the youth jobs guarantee fund over the next two years is certain to be implemented; and the way funding will be obtained. [49372/13]
View answer349. Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Social Protection the number of jobs and training places that will be created from the proposed €200 million for the youth jobs guarantee. [49373/13]
View answer357. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Social Protection the amount of funding provided for youth programmes in 2013; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [49463/13]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 348, 349 and 357 together.
The Department of Social Protection has set up an interdepartmental group with officials and programme managers from the Department of Education and Skills, Department of Jobs Enterprise and Innovation, and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, to 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 Youth Guarantee. The Department of Social Protection has also engaged the assistance of the OECD in developing the Youth Guarantee Policy.
It is intended to produce a concrete plan for the implementation of the Guarantee for consideration by the Government in December before being transmitted to the European Commission by the end of 2013. Development of the 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 support from EU funds, e.g. European Social Fund (ESF) and Youth Employment Initiative (ESF)).
For Ireland this plan will likely require:
- Earmarking a quota of additional places/opportunities for young people on existing schemes.
- Varying the eligibility conditions for access to certain schemes by young people - for example reduce the eligibility criteria so that young people can access places/opportunities after shorter spell of unemployment rather than the general requirement of 12 months unemployment.
- Expanding 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.
In 2012, we spent an estimated €170m on participation in employment, training and further education programmes for jobless young people. Significant further amounts were expended on mainstream provision of further and higher education preparing young people for entry to working life. Final estimates of cost and participants for 2013 will be produced at the end of this year when full-year cost and participant estimates (including age-breakdowns) will be available.
As an initial step towards preparing for implementation of the guarantee, provision was made in the 2014 Budget for:
- 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
- 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 total, the provision across these headings in the 2014 Budget comes to about €46 million. The final amount of expenditure on youth programmes for 2014 cannot be predicted with certainty as it will in part be determined by the level of take-up by young people and the level of funding secured from the EU and on the mix of programmes involved. It is however likely to be significantly up on 2012 levels.
Given the scale of existing and future provision it is clear that the bulk of funding for labour market programmes for young people will continue to come from domestic exchequer sources. We will however endeavour to maximise Ireland’s share of the additional funding available from the EU.
It is estimated that EU funding (ESF and YEI) for these programmes will be of the order of €64 million in respect of each of the years 2014 and 2015. Given the way the funding is structured, in order to recoup these amounts from the EU in due course, it will be necessary that we spend, in the first instance, close to €100 million on relevant programmes each year, or close to €200 million in 2014-2015 overall. As will be clear from the above, it is anticipated that actual expenditure will be significantly in excess of that amount over the period concerned.
