Mr. John Lawlor:

I will deal with the funding questions and then bring in some of my colleagues to respond.

Scouting Ireland receives an annual youth services grant through the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, which we very much appreciate. This year it stands at €876,000. That represents a 5% improvement on last year which was a 2.5% increase on the previous year. Before the recession, it stood at €1.3 million. Like most organisations in the sector, we suffered a cutback of approximately 35%. That knocked us back a fair bit. We have had to be prudent. We understood the challenge to the nation and shouldered our burden. The fact that we are growing helped a little but it has imposed strains on us.

Apart from that annual funding we receive project funding for certain projects, for example, the youth employment project in Limerick, which came from dormant accounts. We very much appreciated that support which allowed us to do some different things. Our refugee programmes have not been funded but we are optimistic that the next round will be, particularly the funding for the rover scouts working with the Greek scouts, which we think is a very important programme for Ireland.

On the capital side we were disappointed because we engaged in major capital works last year at Killaloe and Larch Hill, which cost approximately €1.3 million. We made significant submissions to Government on that. We received a grant of €50,000 towards the Killaloe project but we had made significant submissions on that. It fell in the change of Government, which was a disadvantage. In Larch Hill almost €1 million was invested without any State support whatsoever. That is our major centre in the Dublin area. It is a state-of-the-art 56-bed hostel and training centre. We are delighted to have it but it would have been much easier for us if we had support on that capital project. I hope that answers the Deputy's question.

Starting up a scout troop is very expensive and we support that internally. Before Ms Kelly took on the role of research officer she was a development officer in the west of Ireland and so is probably best qualified to give an insight into what is involved in supporting the establishment of a new scout troop. We would be thrilled to do that in Clonakilty if and when we can.