Fine Gael Innovation Spokesperson Deirdre Clune TD called Fine Gael’s youth employment plan positive news offering real hope to a whole generation of young Irish people forgotten by the Government.

Figures released by the CSO (pdf 117KB) yesterday shows that in the last two years youth unemployment has jumped from 34,800 in November 2007 to 85,900 in November 2009.

Fine Gael has taken a radically different approach to the budget than the Government. While they see it as a bookkeeping exercise, we believe that restoring competitiveness and creating jobs is fundamental to finding our way out of this economic crisis.

As part of this we have launched “Hope for a Lost Generation” (pdf 78KB) – a set of targeted interventions in the Labour market that will take more than 30,000 people off the Live Register. The proposals are deliberately targeted at those unemployed people under the age of 25.

There is a real risk that we will have a permanently lost generation if something proactive is not done to stem this loss of talent and ability leaving Ireland.

As part of our budget proposals we propose a net €245m worth of Labour Market interventions in our budget perspective which will be published on Friday. This money will be used to create:
· 13,000 graduate internship placements,
· 10,000 second chance education scheme placements,
· 5,000 extra CES places
· 10,000 jobs retained through a Government supported workshare scheme.

This is the type of intervention, targeted and specific to our needs, that is required to get us out of this economic crisis. This is the type of intervention that is sadly missing from this Government.