Dole recipients will be offered €1,000 to go on training courses 

Social protection minister Heather Humphreys is also expected to outline a plan to pay higher dole payments to people who had been on higher salaries.

People on the dole are to be offered €1,000 to embark on a training course under a major new plan to be announced by the Government today.

The Pathways to Work Strategy 2021-2025, to be unveiled in Dundalk, will state a target of reducing youth unemployment from its current rate of 44% to 12.5% by 2023. This is because young people are at greater risk of long-term unemployment, and the measures to be announced will seek to combat the “disproportionate effect of the pandemic on young people”.

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The plan includes a separate commitment to get 75,000 long-term unemployed back to work within the next two years.

The Irish Examiner understands the plan will commit to giving those seeking to engage in short-term training courses €1,000 towards the cost of tuition.

According to sources, each person will be assigned a case officer and, once your certificate of qualification is produced, the funds will be released.

Construction sector to be targeted

The Government seeks to target the construction sector, where there are acute skills shortages, over the next five years.

The plan will also see an increase in the eligibility age, from 25 to 30, for employers obtaining recruitment subsidies under the JobsPlus scheme. This means if an employer takes on someone up to the age of 30, they will get a grant of up to €10,000.

It is expected that social protection minister Heather Humphreys will outline a plan on how to achieve higher dole payments for those who earn more.

Salary-based dole payments

As previously articulated by Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar, she will set out her proposed mechanism for granting higher dole payments than the current standard payment, based on a percentage of people’s salary for a specific number of weeks or months when they lose their job.

The Pathways to Work plan will have an overall target of over 100,000 additional caseloads per year, reducing the risk of labour market scarring and long-term unemployment.