€40m EU boost for State’s youth job creation plans

Government plans to create jobs and provide training for the country’s unemployed youth should get an unexpected boost with an advance of around €40m from the EU.

In total more than €1bn will be distributed over the next few months to help about 650,000 unemployed young people in 20 EU countries.

Ireland is to receive €136m over two years from the Youth Guarantee and Social Fund to help reduce the number under the age of 25 who are out of work.

The move was welcomed by Europe Minister Dara Murphy who said the schemes were being implemented on a phased basis, targeting the long-term unemployed first. “We will look carefully at any additional flexibility that might be available from today’s announcement.”

The EU commissioner for employment and social affairs, Marianne Thyssen, said the commission hoped that by pre-financing countries’ programmes they would help more people more quickly.

“Our young people need jobs and need them now. It is unacceptable that more than one young person in five on the labour market cannot find a job,” she said.

Normally the Government would have to pay for the various programmes and claim back the money from the EU youth and structural funds. The commission proposes cutting out the delay and the European Parliament and the Council of member states’ ministers are expected to approve it swiftly.

Overall in the EU, the plan will increase funding for this year by up to 30 times the original sums allocated to front-load schemes.

The move was welcomed by James Doorley of the National Youth Council, who said there was a concern that projects were being rolled out too slowly because the State had to come up with the funding in advance.

“We would like to see the promised schemes being rolled out more quickly.”

The Government has gone ahead with a number of schemes already, including the Ballymun pilot project, which has just finished, where the EU allocated €250,000 of the total cost of €300,000.

An assessment of its success is under way. Mr Dooley said that so far there has been very little assessment of the effect of schemes including those that help people prepare personal progression plans.

The JobsPlus programme, which pays employers up to €10,000 a year for taking a young person off the dole, also operates.

The latest CSO figures show an increase of 1,361, or 21.6% in under 25-year-olds on the live register bringing the total to 49,289.