Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I must make a declaration of interest as I was a former chief executive of the Children's Rights Alliance and a former president of the National Youth Council of Ireland. They say that every day is a school day and the figure Ms Tanya Ward gave initially, which Deputy Ó Caoláin just missed, was that there has been a 13.4% increase in the child population since 2006. We have to contrast that against the cuts. We have an increasing child population, which all the economists tell us is important for demographics purposes, and yet we are not protecting their childhoods. Another stark statistic is the back to school clothing and footwear allowance figure Ms Ward gave of €17 million received by 200,000 families and what it would actually cover. We need to examine that. Often when we have a debate on child benefit, and I will go out and defend it, we are told that we do know what it is spent on. We are very clear on what the back to school allowance is about, so I am concerned about that aspect.

With regard to the child and family agency, I am a little concerned with already having to ask for there to be no cut in its resourcing. How do we know that the amount that is being allocated to the new agency is a fair proportion of what should be allocated from the HSE? How do we know that the starting point is fair and that the agency is not already starting way behind the starting line? That is a concern I have on that issue.

Regarding youth work services and the question of cuts, there has been an increased legislative basis for youth work with vetting, and rightly so, but has that removed costs for organisations that provide such services? The Seanad is currently discussing the issue of bullying and that arises when an issue becomes a problem, whereas youth work involves getting in much earlier and engaging in preventive early intervention work which we should be supporting.

We are all concerned about the level of youth unemployment. Mr. Doorley mentioned the youth guarantee and leveraging EU funding. Will the State have to also leverage funding and what will be the relationship and the timeline in that respect?

My final point is on alcohol-related harm given the day that it is. We made a very strong statement in the previous session which I would advise the representatives to read. People are not aware that youth organisations will not take funding from alcohol companies. This is not said enough. Often it is said that the sports organisations are torn about this issue. The other day I tweeted about the events of today and I had a difficulty that an organisation, drinkaware.ie, was promoting alcohol. I got a telephone call from the organisation questioning my action of tweeting. The problem is that the drinks industry funds this body which then promotes the drinks industry. If youth work organisations will not take funding from the drinks industry, there is an issue for them; this relates to the levy Mr. Doorley spoke about and that money could go to youth work organisations and in that way there would be a legitimate way for such money to go to them. That is not heard in the public debate. I would encourage youth work organisations to say clearly and strongly to the public that every youth organisation has a policy that it will not take money from the drinks industry.