Call to establish €1m fund to tackle youth employment

A young entrepreneurs’ fund of €1m and a job or training guarantee scheme are among the measures a cross-party committee want the Government to adopt in an attempt to tackle youth unemployment.

Almost one in three (30%) of under-25s in Ireland are unemployed — twice the national unemployment rate — and the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation said many were not in education or training either.

Fine Gael TD Damien English, the committee’s chairman, said: “It’s become clear to us as a committee that this whole area is a major concern. It’s an issue we really feel we have to focus in on.”

Among the 35 recommendations the committee make in a 130-page report is for a “youth guarantee” scheme that would ensure young people have a job in the private sector, a part- time job or placement in the public sector, or a place on a training course as soon as they leave school or further education.

“The best thing we can do is give them a job. The next best thing we can do is keep them as close to the workforce as possible so that when they get the relevant skills or when a relevant job comes up, they are ready to take it,” said committee vice-chairman, Labour TD John Lyons.

Setting up the scheme would cost €250,000, but Mr English said that an application had been made to take part in an EU youth guarantee pilot programme and funding could be available from the EU.

He said that many of the other recommendations would not require additional expenditure, but would involve redirecting some of the €900m already spent by the Government each year on various labour market activation programmes. The exception is a proposed youth entrepreneurship fund which the committee said should make €1m available for first-time jobseekers to start up their own firms.

Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín, said the country had lost 130,000 young people to emigration over the past four years. “There is a cost of not doing this,” said his party colleague, Senator David Cullinane.

The report also includes recommendations for cutting red tape and costs for employers creating jobs, including a review of the minimum wage, as well as the creation of better links with industry to ensure training courses focus on the skills and languages that match available jobs.

The committee want the scheme adopted as part of the Government’s national Action Plan for Jobs 2013.