Mr. Gerard Roe:

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach for another good question. Youth workers have, on the ground, taken it upon themselves to try to address this and establish something like what Tusla and social care have – a career that protects them. Youth work does not really have that. There are different youth work bodies around the country which all pay differently and offer different pay scales. That is where it stops. If you want your pot of gold, you will not go into youth work, as someone mentioned. People are drawn to it because they like working with young people. It is more vocational. They are happy to accept that and they are going in with that knowledge they will be on a pay scale. However, then they get older and everything else. They are doing this without a pension as well. It is challenging, difficult work. Every year, it takes its pound of flesh from them, so they want some sort of reward. I just think this has all caught up on people. The goalposts are moving and the landscape is changing. Society is different now and it is moving at such a fast pace that, while perhaps we did not think like that before, we have been trying to get organised. Youth workers themselves are coming together. It is not being led by any organisation. If anything, it has to be done separately from the organisations and organised independently away from them because the old argument will come down about not to be doing that because the funding could be cut, and all these kinds of things. It is that kind of culture. At least, that is what we see.