Youth Unemployment
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-15
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Neale Richmond (FG), Dublin Rathdown

Where we are in agreement is that the trend is the concern. Youth unemployment being ahead of general unemployment is something we can accept happens but the rate at the moment is a worry. I share that with the Deputy and it is important we clarify that. That is why the Government continues to monitor labour market conditions and the youth unemployment rate and several of our recent initiatives will be central to supporting the broader economy, not least our ambitious investment plans and the action plan on competitiveness and productivity the Department published last year.
An interesting thing when I was in the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment was the work of the labour market activation committee, which brings together that Department and the Department of Social Protection to see where those gaps are. They are consistently working with stakeholders from civic society, the labour movement, industry and representative groups as well as those academics who look into this research, whether from the ESRI, the Nevin Institute or any other bodies of a similar nature. That is something constantly looked at by the Government as well as why there is a constant evolution of our enterprise strategy and why we say we need to create 300,000 extra jobs in the programme for Government. That is not simply to stand still or offset anything. It is just to move forward, which is so important.
We look at the general economic trends across the European Union and in the United Kingdom. There is a serious worry there but Ireland, thankfully, has not been caught up in that. However, there are serious headwinds. One thing of particular focus is the fact that when we are creating 100 new jobs per week, these are new jobs and that they are generally tailored with the educational abilities of the next generation of Irish workers coming out at whether at second level or third level.
Certainly, any trend that is slightly above normal requires investigation. The Government is committed to looking at that on an ongoing basis. If Sinn Féin wants to contribute to that research or have its own research, we are more than happy to work in tandem in the national interest.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-15