Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 4 November 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement

Co-operation Ireland's Future Leaders Programme: Discussion

2:00 am

Ms Zoe Fleming:

I feel like it keeps going back to the schools because that is where every child has to go. That is where they can be reached. If it is outside school there are people who are struggling with things in their lives. You do not know what is going on in someone’s life and they might not have the opportunity to go out and go to a youth club or to classes outside school. Personally, I am a busy, busy bee. I am at one thing and the next all the time. I try to make time for that kind of stuff because I love going out in the community and doing my extracurriculars and all that kind of stuff, but when it comes to schools and education, that is where everyone is, where everyone comes together and where everyone learns. If it is even just brought up in school, like with everyone coming down to the hall for a talk about it that will spark the interest and then they can go outside the school. It just needs to be started where everyone is because if it starts outside school there are going to be people who miss it and ones who it goes right over. They come back a couple of years later and say they would have loved to do that had they known about it as a kid. It could even be opened outside schools and then people could go in, give a talk and hand out flyers, which is what my band do. We have these flyers and we run things to have people know about it and come in. We did the open night for the school we run out of. We had a little stand and were giving out our flyers to all the kids coming in to have a look at the school. We are saying we are here and we are an extra thing outside the school they can have a look at. It needs to be started. It does not have to be a class, a course or anything like that in school. It just needs to be talked about so it can branch and out and people can know it is there in the community.

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