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”.