Ms Kate Duggan:

Regarding what Mr. Gloster mentioned concerning Way 2 Work Ireland, I encourage any members who have not seen the details of this programme to log on and watch the video online. It is a programme where we have doubled our funding in the past two years. It is targeted at supporting those hard-to-reach young people who find it difficult to access training or support. In this period, 148 young people have undertaken mentoring who had not been able to access education or training, and 53 have now secured employment. Training and education has been accessed by 408 young people overall through that programme. These were young people unable to access the traditional routes to education and training. Apprenticeships and training were arranged with key industry partners, including John Sisk & Son Limited and the Construction Industry Federation. This is, therefore, a positive, good news story. We have doubled our funding in this regard because this programme is working well in supporting those young people who have found it difficult to access education.

Turning to the inter-agency element, it is important to state first that in all our areas we now have an aftercare steering committee. It has members from the HSE, local authorities and Tusla and is concerned with assessing the wider needs of young people as part of their aftercare plan. As Mr. Gloster said, we have made a significant representation regarding and have had significant input into this process, along with the advocacy groups, such as Empowering People in Care, EPIC, and Care Leavers Ireland, and all the Departments in respect of the youth homelessness strategy being launched in November this year. It has ambitious targets concerning this inter-agency aspect in the context of the preventative element of youth homelessness and concerning how we respond to the existing problem. Tusla has just opened our first semi-independent living unit as well, in Donegal. We are going to try to support young people in care aged over 16 in semi-independent living by providing accommodation and supporting services. We have just recently opened this pilot project. We have four people there, but there is capacity for nine.