Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)

It was stated that one of the arguments against changing the sub-minimal rates is that young people might be the first to go, which is an obvious possibility when an employer is making a decision. Do the witnesses have statistics on the increase in youth employment when this was introduced? Obviously an employer would have seen it as an incentive at the time to take on someone young at a lower rate. Was the annual rate of increase in youth employment greater than that in normal employment?