As a resident of Ballymun and champion of the Youth Guarantee, I have supported this application for the pilot programme to help tackle youth unemployment in the area. This funding approval is a fantastic opportunity to test the application of the Youth Guarantee and to bring people together at local level to see the best approach to tackling youth unemployment.
How it works
The pilot will work by engaging any young person in Ballymun under 25 who comes onto the Live Register in Ballymun during the year-long pilot, as well as the 360 young people currently on it in for over 12 months. The local job centre will engage up to 90 young people a month in total from these two groups.
The pilot will guarantee access to career guidance for each young person leading to identification of an individual career path with follow-through to training, education, work experience or full-time employment.
A particular focus of the Ballymun pilot will be to build links with employers in the locality to ensure that the guidance and training elements of the Youth Guarantee are tailored to the needs of the local labour market. This will also generate work placement opportunities for the Youth Guarantee participants and hopefully long term jobs.
Another key element of the pilot will be the involvement of young people in shaping how the pilot works. A local young person will be on the Implementation Team giving real input and feedback on the operation of the pilot Guarantee and any future roll-out nationally.
Problem of Youth Unemployment
Apart from this waste of potential, unemployment at a young age has negative effects in terms of lost earnings –the ‘wage scar’, personal health, and loss of skills, amongst others. There is also an economic cost to Europe of more than €150bn a year, or 1.2 per cent of EU GDP.
The Ballymun pilot is the first step in implementing the Youth Guarantee in Ireland. Offering not just opportunities to young people in Ballymun, it will also provide a test case for how best to apply the Youth Guarantee as a policy tool to tackle youth unemployment across Ireland.
This is excellent news for Ballymun and I eagerly await the launch of the project in October.
Further Information:
- European agreement on the Youth Guarantee was made in March as part of a €6 billion package to tackle youth unemployment to be front-loaded over the 2014/2015 period. While Ireland’s allocation from this fund has yet to be decided, this pilot scheme funding will help us prepare for a future roll out of the Youth Guarantee.
· Member States with the highest youth unemployment rates, including Ireland, will draw up action plans by the end of this year, so that the Guarantee can be implemented from the beginning of 2014.
· The total cost of the Ballymun Pilot project is €302,279, of which €250,000 will come from the EU. The project should start in October. The duration of project will be 12 months.
· The Local Implementation Team will comprise representatives of relevant stakeholders, including the Department of Social Protection, FAS, CDVEC, Ballymun Whitehall Area Partnership, Ballymun Job Centre/Local Employment Service Network, North Dublin Chamber of Commerce, Ballymun for Business, EQUAL Youth, and a representative young person from the area.
- Introducing a Youth Guarantee was one of the key recommendations in an Oireachtas Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Committee Report I helped out together and which was published in March 2013.
For more information on the Pilot Project, please contact me on 01 618 3280 or john.lyons@oir.ie and I am happy to discuss it with you.
