It is not just older citizens who were targeted in the budget announced yesterday. Young people also took a significant hit and received a clear message from the Government. Since the Taoiseach took office in 2011, some 18,000 fewer young people are working in the economy. Approximately 1,700 people emigrate from the State every week - a shocking statistic - the majority of whom are young and educated who are leaving because they have no prospect of finding decent work here. These young people under 25 years, their mothers, fathers and grandparents and people throughout the State watched yesterday hoping against hope the Government would provide something that would mean they would not be forced to join the lengthening emigration trail at our airports. What did the Government do? It announced a range of brutal measures aimed specifically at the youth of the State, none more startling than the slashing of the jobseeker's allowance for those under 25 years. It has clearly decided that the youth of Ireland will carry the can for the mistakes of the Government and the previous one. Having failed to create an environment in which young people can flourish, the Government now wants rid of them. Emigration is now the official employment policy for young people. A cut of up to one third in the jobseeker's allowance for people under 25 years sends an unmistakable message to young people that the Government regards them as a burden rather than as the future of the country. I question the legality of such a brazen discriminatory measure, but I presume the Government has received legal advice as to its legality. Will the Taoiseach clarify this? Above all, will he come clean and speak out on what is obvious to us all, young people, their families and communities, that just like Fianna Fáil did previously, the Government has chosen a policy of forced emigration for young people?

The Ryanair budget.

I do not at all accept Deputy Mary Lou McDonald's assertion. I heard her being questioned on this issue this morning and when she was asked what she would do, she gave no answer, other than to continue with Sinn Féin's policy of Sinn Féin promotion. Like everybody else, I regard the young people of this country as its future. The Deputy, however, seems to want to confine them to the dole queues and not give them the opportunity to get off the live register or dole queues and take the opportunity to be trained, mentored, attend further education or find a job or to incentivise them to do this. I do not accept her assertion in this regard.

Clearly, in reforming the social protection system there must be a difference between those who have the motivation and incentive to find a job to better themselves and others. Many opportunities are being provided by a range of Ministries to help young people to improve themselves. I understand the allocation in Northern Ireland is approximately €65 for a young person under 25 years, while it is €144 here. If a young person goes on a training course or participates in a back-to-education scheme or, as a graduate, in the JobBridge scheme, the allocation increases to €160 or over €200, depending on the subsidy involved. Clearly, there are opportunities and incentives for young men and women to get out and avail of these opportunities. It is the challenge for the Government and its agencies to provide them. For example, the jobseeker's allowance for young people under 26 years who participate in a back-to-education course is being increased to €160 a week. This means that in addition to their enhanced career and job prospects as a result of improving their skills and education levels, there is a financial incentive for them to participate in education and training. Budget 2014 has also allocated an additional €14 million to increase the number of places for young people. For example, there will be 1,500 new places on the JobsPlus scheme. The criteria for the scheme will also be amended in order that those under 25 years need only be six months unemployed to be eligible for it. There will also be 1,500 JobBridge places for those under 25 years. A minimum number of 2,000 places are also ring-fenced at a cost of €6 million for people under 25 years who will be out of work in 2014.

These places will be provided under a follow-up to the MOMENTUM programme, which has been very successful in 2013. Next year the Department of Social Protection and the Minister, Deputy Burton, will spend €1.08 billion on work, training, education places and related supports for young people and jobseekers. This is an increase of €85 million on the projected spend this year.

We want to see a real drive to incentivise and motivate young people to take a back-to-education course, a training or mentoring course or one of the schemes in which places have been reserved for young people. We must allow them the opportunity to fulfil their potential and lead them on to the world of work, where their work will be rewarded, instead of letting them languish in a dispirited, disappointed fashion on the dole queues. That is not what the Government is about. The budget is about bailout exit in December and providing jobs and opportunities for young people to work, as the vast majority of them want to do.

I am glad the Taoiseach clarified the fact he recognises that young people want to work, because the rhetoric from the Government has consistently been either to state openly or to insinuate that young people choose social welfare as a lifestyle choice and there is some type of layabout generation.

Nonsense.

Rubbish.

That is a disgraceful comment.

They are nothing of the sort; they want work. Where are the jobs for them? Where are the jobs for our young people? The disgrace in all of this is that the Government would have the brazen hard neck to lay at the feet of our young people its failure to provide opportunities. The half-baked Mickey Mouse schemes the Government comes up with to massage the live register figures will not cut it. People want real jobs and decent work.

The only thing the budget achieved yesterday was to take €32 million out of the pockets of people under 25 on jobseeker's payments who want work but cannot find it. The Government did not stop at this. It has cut funding to third level education and whacked up the registration fee again. It has taken money from young people on FÁS courses. It has hit apprentices as it insists they must pay a registration fee. The Taoiseach should spare me, please, the waffle and baloney about his concern for our young people. The Government has made it clear to our young people that it is time to pack their bags and leave, because the Government has failed them and will fail them and sees them as a burden. If I am wrong-----

You are wrong.

If?

If, by chance, I am wrong, then I put it to the Taoiseach to prove me wrong and to reverse the cut specifically to jobseeker's payments. Prove I am wrong and make this decision and announce it in the Dáil this morning.

It is a good flow of rhetoric, and I will prove the Deputy wrong. During the three years prior to the Government's election we lost 250,000 jobs, or 7,000 jobs a month. The economic mess left behind by Fianna Fáil over many years has had to be cleared up. We have stabilised it-----

Do not punish young people for Fianna Fáil.

-----and we now create 3,000 jobs a month. This is progress. It is not where we want to be.

Will Deputy McDonald admit this?

The Government cuts social welfare to create jobs. It is a disgrace. Deputy Byrne has sold his principles.

The live register has declined for 15 consecutive months and the unemployment rate has decreased from 15.5% to 13.5%. We are creating jobs for young people. If Deputy McDonald states the JobBridge scheme for young graduates is a Mickey Mouse operation she should go and speak to people from every constituency. Young graduates were confined to the dole queues but because we have reformed the system they have an opportunity to go into the world of work. More than 65% of those who go on a JobBridge scheme find full employment as a consequence. If Deputy McDonald thinks this is a Mickey Mouse operation she should speak to them.

Hear, hear.

How dare she insult their intelligence and motivation? How dare she insult their right to go and have a job? How dare she, with her Sinn Féin antics, want to confine our young people to dole queues in perpetuity - to give them taxpayers' money and confine them to the dole queues?

Another 80,000 are emigrating.

That is the Taoiseach's legacy.

The Taoiseach thinks he is back in school.

Emigration again.

What we have done over the past 12 months is to create 34,000 new jobs, many for young people, and I want to increase this.

The Minister, Deputy Bruton, has set out his target for next year of 50,000 new jobs. Many of these will be taken up by young people. We are very proud of them. How dare Deputy McDonald stand up in the House of Parliament and insult our young people and state they are involved in Mickey Mouse schemes------

From a Mickey Mouse Government. Correct, Taoiseach.

-----when clearly they lead on to opportunity and employment, which is what Deputy McDonald should be putting forward? Not one constructive suggestion from her.

Wrong.

From the man who held two jobs for 30 years. He kept a young person out of a teacher's job for about 30 years. He drew his pension and his money.

I ask Deputy Doherty to show respect. He will leave the House if he is not careful.

He did not.

He did.

Find the bodies you buried.

Please stay quiet. Roaring and shouting is getting us nowhere. You are an embarrassment on television.

Tell that to the Taoiseach.