Mr. Patrick Burke:

I will keep my response as succinct as possible. Senator Jim D'Arcy kicked off the issue. Clearly he has a deep knowledge of the sector, the sheer number of young people who are engaged and the number of volunteers and staff. The sector is giving value for money. I am aware of a discussion in the Seanad last night on a report produced by the National Youth Council of Ireland which studied the value for money of youth work. For very little money in the overall scheme of things all of these programmes are delivered locally in all communities.

On the issue of youth cafés, obviously we welcome the investment from the Government. Unfortunately, it is primarily capital funding. One of the key challenges, as Deputy O'Reilly mentioned, is how to staff these and resource our volunteers. Organisations such as ourselves put a good deal of time and energy into making sure that volunteers are Garda vetted and that child protection measures are in place. Obviously that is critical but it comes at a cost.

In regard to the strategic plan which we share, it is a great idea and we are delighted to have it but perhaps the committee might think about how it could help us resource it a little more. Again we are talking about relatively small amounts of money but were the two organisations able to meet and plan much more strategically and in detail, the effect at grassroots level would bear fruit. There is money available but it is around the grassroots work. If we were able to strategise around that area with a little money at management or organisational level that would make a huge difference.

Mobility is a critical issue. We must find ways of promoting mobility between both jurisdictions among young people. Something like the Irish youth music awards is one way of doing that where we have bands coming from North and South. It is not just the banks it includes all their crew, their background and their family. That programme is delivered for about €30,000 and there are 10,000 young people involved in it. Is that not value for money? That gets people moving and it gets people speaking to each other. It creates friendships and all kinds of co-operation. That is one example of the huge impact of a small amount of investment. As a sector we are operating with between 40% and 50% less funding than we had four or five years ago. That has a huge impact on the sector. We are awake to the realities of life. Ireland is not the same any more. We have huge challenges. We are doing our best to deliver on a shoestring. The outcomes are there to be seen, they are empirically verifiable. I hand over to my colleague.