Major boost for jobless

LOCALS in Ballymun aged under 25 could be guaranteed jobs, education or training under a new pilot scheme that’s part of a major EU initiative aimed at tackling youth unemployment.

The pilot project, due to start in October, will be used to test the EU Youth Guarantee Scheme, which is part of a

?¬6 billion package to tackle youth unemployment across Europe.

The scheme aims to ensure that all young people up to the age of 25 receive an offer of a quality job, continued education, or training within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed.

Ballymun was just one of 12 areas across Europe selected to pilot the scheme and it will have massive support from local and national agencies in an effort to ensure its success.

The European Commission has described Youth Guarantee as

“one of the most crucial and urgent reforms

? needed to tackle youth unemployment, which effects about one in four young people in Europe.

In Ireland the youth unemployment rate is 26.3 per cent with 25,818 under 25s on the Live Register for a year or more.

The Ballymun pilot scheme will target local people under 25 who come onto the Live Register during the year-long project, as well as the 360 young adults from the area already on the dole for over 12 months.

During the pilot scheme the local Ballymun Job Centre will engage up to 90 young people a month from these two groups and try to secure work, education or training for them.

The total cost of the pilot project is

?¬302,279, of which

?¬250,000 will come from the EU, and if successful it will be rolled out across Ireland and Europe.

Local TD John Lyons (Lab), who has long advocated piloting the scheme in Ballymun, said he was delighted it had been one of the few chosen areas.

“This is excellent news for Ballymun and I eagerly await the launch of the project,

? he said.

“As a local resident and champion of the Youth Guarantee, I have fully supported Ballymun’s 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.

“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.

?

The Ballymun Job Centre is understood to have been instrumental in the success of the application to pilot the scheme in the area and will be involved in implementing the project, along with other local and national stakeholders.

The implementation team will have local representation from Ballymun Whitehall Area Partnership, North Dublin Chamber of Commerce, Ballymun for Business and EQUAL Youth.

A representative young person will also be part of the team as well as national bodies like IBEC, the National Youth Council of Ireland, the Department of Social Protection, FAS and CDVEC.

Dublin MEP Emer Costello (Lab), who brought a

delegation from the European Parliament’s Employment & Social Affairs Committee to Ballymun last February, said the area was ideal to pilot the Youth Guarantee.

“We cannot underestimate the corrosive impact on a community of large numbers of young people remaining unemployed,

? she said.

“Ballymun has suffered for too long from social problems that result from high levels of unemployment.

“The Youth Guarantee Pilot Project will provide a major boost to the Ballymun Regeneration Project, ensuring a degree of social regeneration will take place alongside the housing regeneration in the area.

“Last October, I visited Ballymun Jobs Centre and discussed the potential of the proposed Youth Guarantee with Manager Mick Creedon. I was hugely impressed by the services provided by the centre and commitment of its staff to the local young people.

?

Dublin North West TD Róisín Shortall also welcomed the announcement that the pilot scheme will be run in Ballymun, which she described as

“great news for the area

?.

“Ireland has one of the worst rates of youth unemployment in the Eurozone and nowhere has the effect of this been felt worse than in Ballymun,

? she said.

“The Youth Guarantee is a concrete step towards addressing this crisis once and for all.

?