An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-23
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Nessa Cosgrove (LAB), Labour Panel

Yesterday, there was a report by the National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, that found that seven out of ten young people feel they want to leave Ireland. Those figures are not just a lifestyle choice, which is very obvious from the research it did. It previously carried out research that found that nine out of ten young people feel the employment opportunities are not there for them, which is a shocking statistic. The NYCI did that report and I hope it will be considered in the budget. We could have a debate around this but particularly about keeping young people in our country. I introduced a Bill last year on the abolition of some minimum rates of pay, but unfortunately it was shot down. One of the reasons that is cited in this recent report is pay. Because of the cost-of-living crisis, young people feel they have no quality of life here because they are on low wages. That is one thing for which they are calling. Another thing they are calling for in this report is that the lower rates of jobseeker's allowance for underage groups would be the same so that everyone would have the same rate of pay for jobseeker's allowance. They also called for free public transport for under-25s. I think these are very reasonable measures. We can see the success of targeted measures. Credit has to be given for targeting free public transport for those aged under eight. That worked really well. We have an opportunity here to revisit the Bill I brought in about the abolition of sub-minimum rates of pay for young people. Trade unions are behind this. This statistic shows that young people are choosing to live abroad because the wages are not meeting the cost of housing and cost of living here. We have to acknowledge that in this House. I would love to have further debate about it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-09-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-23