Professor Maurice Devlin:

I know from the Maynooth University perspective as well as with other higher education institutes that is exactly what is happening. People are increasingly being enticed into other careers straight from graduation because of the issues that have been mentioned. In response to the earlier question, it is a crisis.

Ms Cunningham said much of what I might have said. I have been around for a very long time. I know I could be accused of romanticising the past, especially regarding things I was involved in. Senator Ruane asked a very interesting question when she spoke about the need to be clear on the role of youth work given that it is pulled in all kinds of directions. Why is it pulled in all kinds of directions? It is because the youth workers are there.

They are available, local, accessible, friendly and committed. When there are issues, they are on top of it, and the young people know that. They get dragged everywhere. Increasingly, the State has come to know that too. The youth workers will do it and can do it like nobody else. There is piecemeal funding thrown at youth work, effectively exploiting its enormous strengths without resourcing those optimally in a way that would be better for everybody. It would be a win-win all round, if only the vision would be brought to bear on it.

The other question the Senator asked, related to that, was what the alternative is and what we would go back to. A few people spoke about the lack of systematic deep engagement between all of the different stakeholders. The Costello report, which is the report of the National Youth Policy Committee, was published 40 years ago next year. It had built into it the principle of partnership with the statutory and voluntary sectors, recognising that youth work is a social profession but, uniquely, that it is also still a social movement. That is a remarkable thing. That principle was taken and built on in the Youth Work Act 2001. It took a long time, mind you - nearly 20 years. The Youth Work Act enshrined that principle of partnership. The Act was never properly implemented. The role of the NYCI as a representative voice for the sector was recognised formally for a time and then discontinued - formally, at least. Thankfully, the assignment of a statutory responsibility to the education and training boards, ETBs, formerly the vocational education committees, VECs, was eventually implemented in 2013, which was a long time later as well, but the partnership was lost and the National Youth Work Advisory Committee was disbanded. That structured engagement and the idea that it is something that will work best when everybody involved gets around the table and ensures we deal with the extraordinary complexity of it all was lost.

Looking back, the Costello report contained a proposal for the provision of a comprehensive youth service locally throughout the country. It had an eye to Northern Ireland in the development of it, especially with regard to costings. Back then, the South was way behind and Costello's proposals seemed extraordinary at the time. Despite the continuing deficiencies, there has been a huge advance over the years in the funding for youth work, if we look back far enough. However, the North and South are now about equal in terms of funding for youth work, when the funding in the South should be two and a half times greater. The Costello report proposed this idea of a comprehensive local youth service with youth work at its core. What it called mainline youth work is what we would now call universal youth work. It also mentioned special work to supplement that work, which would now be called targeted work. The central piece of it all was what we would now refer to as universal youth work. The funding has been skewed entirely in the other direction in the meantime, meaning people who need it are having resources directed their way but the potential of youth work is not being exploited to anything like the degree it could be if a greater vision were exercised, one that was more expansive and imaginative and that listened to the people who have things to say and who have advised and informed views to express.