Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)

First, I want to acknowledge that up to last May, I was the chair of the youth and arts committee on GRETB through Galway County Council. I got to visit many youth centres to see first-hand the really solid, good work. For example, I visited Youth Work Ireland centres all over Galway city and county, and in County Roscommon. It was good to see what they do, particularly in tackling disadvantage in disadvantaged areas and with marginalised communities. Some of the work they did was to break down cultural barriers, particularly among young girls in the Traveller, Roma and new Irish communities. It can sometimes be hard to reach young girls, in particular, and convince people from a particular culture to allow them into society in general. Some of the work they did was unbelievable and the way they went about it was so clever. I commend that. In particular, I commend Donal Walsh, Davnet McEllin and Sara Ní Chuirreáin from the youth committee of GRETB for their great work. I spoke to Ms Ní Chuirreáin last night. She would kill me if I did not mention the lack of a single youth centre in Galway city centre, which is something I would also like to relay to the Minister. There is not one single centre in Galway city centre, a city of 150,000 people. It is time we started to address things like this. CIPC and the city council have partnered with GRETB to publish a report to try to get stakeholders involved and address that. It needs major intervention at this stage.

On the lack of adequate spaces, would Dr. Burke support a policy of repurposing vacant buildings, in particular in urban centres? In his opinion, would there be a quick fix if there was a similar grant to the vacant home grant so people could go in, root out a place and make it a vibrant youth space? Would that be a potential winner?