Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests. We could spend the entire morning discussing the impact of cuts on young people. I am impressed with the results achieved by the youth organisations which have come before us. We have heard, for example, that 86% of youth work apprentices secure employment and that 72% of young unemployed people on the REACH training programme progress to employment. These are positive and impressive figures.

I am surprised at the high proportion of young people in the North who are not on the electoral register. Is the position similar in the South? The political parties have tried everything to persuade young people to register for elections, from knocking on doors to canvassing in colleges. According to the survey mentioned, young people feel disillusioned, disenfranchised and disconnected from politics, but they are also interested in politics. This appears to be a contradiction.

Comhairle na nÓg is a youth organisation in the South. Is there a similar organisation active in the North? It is important to have young people meeting and talking to one another. It will be the younger generation, rather than my generation, that will advance reconciliation and peace building. I hope we will be able to build on the changes made. While there is common agreement that this is the way forward, increasing co-operation will be a challenge. It will be achieved by spending small but important sums of money to foster such engagement.

What are our guests' views on getting young people involved in politics? How can young people be persuaded to register for elections? It has been suggested PRSI numbers could be used to automatically register voters. Has this proposal been discussed? Youth groups in my area have been involved in trying to persuade young people to register.

I am not surprised young people are afraid to go into other communities. This is a generational issue and I suspect family members tell young people not to go into other communities. Young people in parts of Tallaght in my constituency are nervous about going into other estates. For example, young people in Jobstown will be nervous about going to Killinarden and vice versa. One will hear young people who are hoping to get a house say they do not want to move to a particular area, which may be only across the road. The reason may be that they would feel uncomfortable living in the area or do not have family links with it. While the problem is bigger in the North, it is also present in the South.

One of the positive outcomes of the peace process is that young people from different communities are starting to go out with each other and breaking taboos by going back and forth between communities. While there have been difficulties in recent weeks, we can move on.

I congratulate the youth organisations on the work they are doing. If they have suggestions on what Members can do to assist them, I would like to hear them, especially with regard to structures. The peace process has not been successful in including civic society, especially young people. The Oireachtas has opened up to Comhairle na nÓg. Could the Assembly take a similar step?