Equality laws hold up €127m jobs fund

More than €127m is available from the EU to help get young Irish people into work — but so far, schemes are being delayed partly because of equality legislation.

With a quarter of young people currently without a job, Ireland needs to speed up its youth employment initiatives, the European Commission says.

But the ban on discrimination on the grounds of age is holding up a number of schemes, as they are designed to help only those under the age of 25.

The National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) is also concerned at the slow pace of initiatives under the Youth Guarantee scheme, aimed at providing people with advice, training and employment within four months of coming onto the jobs market.

Ireland is receiving one of the highest allocations — about €2,000 per person. And while joblessness among younger people has fallen from close to a third, to a quarter, it is still among the highest in the EU.

The Department of Social Protection says the legislation to allow positive discrimination on age grounds in employment services and supports will come before the Oireachtas this month.

Once the law is passed, it will allow earlier and more intensive engagement by Intreo (the single point of contact for all employment and income supports) with young unemployed people, the department said.

It will also allow the Developmental Internship Programme, which will include a pre-internship training period, to be in place no later than the autumn, while the JobsPlus will be available as soon as possible after the legislation, the department added.

Ireland is one of the countries that, according to the Commission is in the process of implementing projects to be financed under the scheme, but so far, only France has got its programme under way.

In all, 20 countries are eligible for funding, and in a change from the usual process, all the funds are available up-front over this year and next year, rather than being spread over five years.

The money can be backdated to last September to cover State spending on helping young people, but while Ireland published its programme in January, the programme has not begun yet, says James Doorley of the NYCI.

While he understood that a lot of organisation was needed to get the projects off the ground, the Council remains worried that a quarter way into the two-year programme, the country will not be able to avail of the full funding.

“We are particularly concerned about the 24,000 long-term unemployed young people who are in danger of being left behind in any recovery or employment growth unless more concerted action is taken,” he said.

Employment Commissioner Laszlo Andor has organised a meeting in Brussels with the member states representatives on Friday to help them speed up their programmes.

The department however, said it would be able to draw down the full amount.

The Government will spend over €500m this year on employment education and training, and this will support the gradual implementation of the Youth Guarantee to cover 28,500 youth places, 5,000 of which have already been taken up mainly through JobBridge.