Ms Celene Dunne:

The question as to whether we are in crisis is a really good one. There are a number of crises like food poverty, which is a huge crisis. It is probably easier to get a meal plan going in a DEIS school. It is very difficult when services are sometimes on the street and detached. Sometimes they are in a centre; sometimes they are moving around. Perhaps in rural areas there is a bigger challenge in getting that programme. However, youth work is feeding young people who are hungry and do not have food. If those services are not there, they are not getting that toasted sandwich and it is not happening. That is a reality.

There are a number of crises. Covid created its own situation for schools, and youth work came to the fore in supporting young people and supporting them to get back. There is also a huge crisis with hate speech and those issues in communities. It has been reported to us, with those protests and monitoring on the streets, that young people have starting to withdraw from youth services because they do not want to go out and face the level of hate out on the street. There are a number of crises coming. The rise of the far right creates its own crisis in these communities, and young people are hugely impacted by any of those crises, as we saw with Covid. They are a vulnerable group. The Deputy has rightly pointed out they are children. We are talking about children who are hungry, who are living in fear, who need support and who do not have access to those services. There is a lot going on and there is a lot in crisis.

The funding crisis and the recruitment crisis can be thrown onto that too. We see that instability and the risk even of existing services becoming reduced. If there is nobody there to make the toasted sandwich, it is just not happening. There is a level of urgency. There are a lot of things we can learn from that have gone right and which we have done right over many years. It is a matter of doing those things and investing in them. Instead of scratching our heads and wondering if there are any needs, if we need to be doing this or if it is the right thing, we need to get on and do it and say it has worked, we can do this and we should be doing it. There is almost a moral part that we need to be responding to those very basic needs. Who should be doing it is not really the question. It is a case of let us do it. That is where we need to be.