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Jobseeker's Payments

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 February 2018

Tuesday, 20 February 2018

Questions (43)

John Brady

Question:

43. Deputy John Brady asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the status of the report into the impact of the reduced jobseeker's payment rates for jobseekers aged 18 to 25 years, further to the commitment in the Pathways to Work 2016-2020 strategy; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8344/18]

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Oral answers (6 contributions)

I want to ask about the status of a report the Government committed to on the cuts to jobseeker's payments for young unemployed people. That report was committed to under the Pathways to Work 2016-2020 strategy. We have yet to see the report. Will the Minister give us an update on it?

The main social welfare schemes for people who are unemployed are jobseeker's allowance and benefit schemes which provide income support for people who have lost work and are unable to find alternative employment for a short time. The 2018 Estimates for the Department provide for expenditure this year on these jobseeker's schemes of €2.17 billion.

Lower weekly rates for younger jobseeker's allowance recipients were introduced to protect young people from welfare dependency by providing them with a very strong financial incentive to engage in education or training or to take up employment if they were lucky enough to be able to get a job. Where young jobseekers participate on an education or training programme, they receive the higher weekly payment of €193, which is the maximum personal rate for jobseeker's allowance. This will increase to €198 from 26 March 2018, having fully given the €5 increase to young people under 25.

The CSO's January 2018 monthly unemployment report shows that the seasonally adjusted youth unemployment rate, that is, the unemployment rate for people aged between 15 and 24 years, was 13.7%. This represents a significant decrease of four and half percentage points from the rate of over 18% we recorded in January last year, so we definitely are going in the right direction.

The National University of Ireland, Maynooth is examining the effectiveness of the reduced rates in encouraging young jobseekers to avail of education, training, employment programmes or opportunities or both. While my Department did not commission this research, we have given the university access to the data from the jobseeker's longitudinal database. Under Pathways to Work 2016-2020, my Department committed to review and report on the impact of the reduced payment rates for jobseekers aged between 18 and 25. This review will be finalised shortly but we will take into account the recent results of the research from Maynooth.

I am keen to ensure the Department identifies effective measures to encourage and support young people in finding and securing sustainable jobs. The best way to do this is through engagement processes and by incentivising young people to avail of education and training, thereby enhancing their employment prospects.

As the Minister is aware, the cuts to jobseeker's payments for young unemployed people were started in 2009 by the then Government comprising Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. It was eagerly pursued by the Minister's party, Fine Gael, and has continued until now. It is a discriminatory cut, and this has been echoed by many organisations, including the National Youth Council of Ireland, which has stated quite clearly it is discriminatory. Our young people aged between 18 and 24 are on what will be €107.70 on 26 March and our 25 year olds have to live on €152.80. This is not only discriminatory but completely unfair. It does not take into account the realities. It puts every young person in the same category, assuming everyone is living at home and relying on family support. The Minister's predecessor said quite clearly that he could not understand how our young people cannot find jobs when people can get off planes and find a job immediately. The reality is no young person wants to be unemployed. These cuts are discriminatory. We have been promised this report for a considerable time. Will the Minister give us a definitive timeframe as to when we will finally see it?

The only category we put all young people in is the fact they are all aged between 18 and 25. There is no basis for thinking they all live at home, that they all have green hair or that they all have four ears. The only category they are in is they are aged between 18 and 25. The targeted measure, aimed at protecting young people from welfare dependency, is to incentivise them to avail of the education and training opportunities that are there in order that they can improve their chances of getting a full-time and sustainable job. I do not see what is wrong with this. I cannot really understand why the Deputy thinks asking young people to train and re-skill themselves is a problem. To show the Deputy it is not prescriptive and that we genuinely do not think they are all the same, there are rates of payment that can be achieved and a full rate of payment for people aged under 26, such as anybody who has a qualified child or is transferring from jobseeker's allowance immediately after exhausting their benefits. There are a number of categories in which people between the ages of 18 and 25 can avail of a full payment, but the absolute easiest way for anybody in that category who is not lucky enough to have a job, that is, the 13% of our young people who are still looking for work, to avail of the €198 per week from 26 March is to go on a training course, go back to education or engage with the Intreo services so we can help them to find a full-time and sustainable job.

The reality, and many organisations have said it, is the discriminatory cuts over which the Minister is presiding are having an impact on young people. Many homeless organisations state they are especially concerned about the effect the cuts may be having on young people. They state it is exacerbating the homeless situation for young people. It is having many negative consequences across the board. Once the report is finally published - the Minister still has not answered the question on when this long-anticipated report will finally be published - we will see the impact it is having on our young people. We know how the discriminatory cuts impact on young people. No young person wants to be sitting at home unemployed. They want to be out there and upskilling. The reality is many young people have the skills, knowledge and enthusiasm to get back into the workforce but they are being precluded from doing so. When will the report to be published and when will the Minister bring an end to the discriminatory cuts facing our young unemployed people?

Instead of looking at the glass half empty, as the Deputy seems to be able to do very well, why does he not look at the reality that this time last year, 18% of our young people were unemployed while today, only 13% are unemployed? This means 5% of the people who have engaged over the past year with JobPath, community employment, jobs clubs, local employment services and Tús have managed to get full-time work. We now have 26,000 people under the age of 26 on jobseeker's allowance and we will not stop until we have none.

We will do that by interacting with them to make sure that they receive training, so that their skills will match the jobs that are there. We all know that there are jobs there. We all know that we are coming very close to full employment. The doors of the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation are being beaten down at present with requests to get people in from foreign countries to come in and take up the jobs that are here. As such, I am not going to stop. We are not going to increase dependency on welfare for anybody under the age of 26. We are far more ambitious for young people in this country than Deputy Brady seems to be.

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