Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 12 November 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Youth
Implementation of National Youth Strategy: Discussion
2:00 am
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We have received no apologies in advance of today's meeting. I welcome everyone joining us in person or watching the proceedings of the meeting.
I ask anyone attending remotely to mute themselves when not contributing in order that we do not pick up any background noise or feedback. As usual, I remind all those in attendance to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent mode or switched off entirely.
Members attending remotely are reminded of the constitutional requirement that, in order to participate in public meetings, they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex.
The witnesses are all very welcome. As they are within the precincts of Leinster House, they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentation they make to this committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they may say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege, and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks, and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity outside of the Houses or an official of the Houses either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.
On the agenda for today's meeting is the implementation of the national youth strategy, entitled Opportunities for Youth: National Strategy for Youth Work and Related Services 2024-2028. I welcome the following witnesses who have joined us: Dr. Patrick J. Burke, chief executive officer of Youth Work Ireland; Ms Sinéad Keane, chief executive officer of Spunout; and Ms Mary Cunningham, outgoing chief executive officer of the National Youth Council of Ireland.
Mr. Mick Curran, the newly appointed chief executive officer, is with us today as an observer. I wish him well in his new role, and I wish Ms Cunningham very well in the future and congratulate her on steering the National Youth Council of Ireland so proficiently over the last two and a half decades. We also have Ms Amy Carey, chief executive officer of Solas Project, Ms Rachael Murphy, director of support services with Foróige. You are all very welcome. I welcome Mr. Yuming Lian, a sixth year student from Belvedere College in Dublin 1, who is here in the Visitors Gallery. Yuming gave evidence to the previous committee on youth participation in climate action education. We are delighted to have him here as well.
I now call on the witnesses to make their opening statements in the following order: Dr. Burke, followed by Ms Keane, Ms Cunningham, Ms Carey and finally Ms Murphy. They will have five minutes each. The opening statements will be followed by questions from members of the committee. Each member will have a six minute speaking slot to ask questions and for the witnesses to respond.
Witnesses have five minutes each. If a statement is particularly long, we have a mechanism by which the remainder of it can be read into the record. It becomes part of the body of our work, and we will proceed on to the next speaker. We begin with Dr. Burke.
Dr. Patrick J. Burke:
I thank members for the opportunity to address them today on behalf of Youth Work Ireland. We welcome the publication of the national youth work strategy 2024–2028 and the recognition it gives to the vital role youth work plays in the lives of young people across the country. The successful implementation of the strategy will depend fundamentally on political will. That political will must be demonstrated not only in words but in the level of funding allocated to ensure the strategy’s ambitions are realised. Without adequate and sustained funding, the strategy risks becoming aspirational rather than actionable. The core costs and infrastructure that underpin youth work provision must be robustly supported. Youth services are not immune to the pressures of inflation or to the increasing demands of regulatory compliance function. These realities must be reflected in funding models. Moreover, multi-annual funding is essential to enable long-term planning, the recruitment and retention of skilled staff, and the development of meaningful, sustained relationships with young people.
We in Youth Work Ireland believe it is time to establish youth work as a social right in Ireland. Every young person should have access to support and services within their own community. This is not a luxury; it is a necessity for equity, inclusion, and the holistic development of our young citizens. We are also concerned that the strategy is silent on the critical role of providing high-quality, reliable information to young people. In an era marked by misinformation and disinformation, the provision of trusted, youth-friendly information is more important than ever. This work must be recognised and resourced adequately.
Looking beyond the current strategy, we must be ambitious for our young people. Youth Work Ireland is proud to lead a national campaign advocating for the right of every young person to access a youth service or support in their own community. We call for a national strategy for the provision of quality youth spaces, ensuring that youth work is delivered in environments that are safe, welcoming, and purpose-built. We urge the committee to support the recognition of youth work as a core component of the education and development system in Ireland. While we understand that different levels of funding are required, the youth sector must be given parity of esteem with the formal education system, acknowledging its unique contribution to personal, social, and civic development of young people. I thank members for their attention and continued support for young people and for youth work in Ireland.
Ms Sinéad Keane:
I am the newly appointed CEO of Spunout, Ireland’s youth information and support platform. We welcome this opportunity to contribute to the committee's important work examining how we can support the implementation of opportunities for youth. At Spunout, we meet young people where they are at, 24-7, 365 days a year. For 20 years, we have worked collaboratively with young people to support their mental health and well-being. We do this by creating evidence-based, person-centred digital solutions and safe, supportive spaces, reaching over 800,000 young people every year. Spunout is an active part of Ireland’s youth sector. Our work in this area focuses primarily on youth information, youth participation and amplifying issues important to young people in Ireland.
Looking to the implementation of the national youth strategy, we have identified three priorities areas. The first is to recognise and resource youth information provisions. Youth information is a crucial part of youth work that provides young people with quality information, guidance, and support to make informed decisions and realise their potential. We are all navigating an online world where misinformation is rife. In an era of clickbait and AI-generated content, factual and accurate information is more important than ever. At Spunout, we provide quality youth information both digitally and via Youth Information Chat, a collaboration between Spunout, Youth Work Ireland, YMCA Ireland and Crosscare, offering information, advice and guidance about the issues that matter to young people. Youth information is an area that is often undervalued and often left off the agenda. The Government commissioned review of youth information in 2023 provides a strong foundation to change this. We are calling for the findings of this review to be published and for the recommendations to be translated into a funded youth information action plan. Youth information needs to be included as a distinct strand in youth work policy and strategy. This area requires substantial funding to support digital youth work and in-person youth information services. Prioritising youth information is an investment in enabling young people to make informed decisions, develop critical thinking skills, and support them navigate an increasingly challenging online world.
The second priority is the introduction of multi-annual core funding. Objective 3 of Opportunities for Youth sets out a vision for sustainable and high quality youth services. In order for this strategy to be effective, adequate funding needs to be behind it. As part of our pre-budget campaign, we called for a €21.3 million investment in youth work services, aligning with the National Youth Council of Ireland and many of its members. While we welcome the €8 million increase in the recent budget, the lack of a substantial investment in this area once again shows young people are not being prioritised. Despite the incredible work carried out by the sector, Ireland’s level of youth work funding has still not recovered to pre-austerity levels when adjusted for inflation. Funding currently allocated on an annual basis creates unnecessary uncertainty for youth services and creates barriers to future planning and innovation. As we look to implement this strategy, we need committee members to support the sector with increased funding and, crucially, multi-annual funding cycles for youth schemes.
Our third priority area is launching a national capital investment programme for youth spaces. The key issue that has been brought to our attention through youth consultations is the lack of third spaces in which young people can congregate, socialise and access services. The absence of third spaces, distinct from home and school, has profound implications for young people in Ireland. The EU Loneliness Survey found that Ireland is the loneliest country in the EU, where young people are more at risk of loneliness than older people. Youth work infrastructure is inadequate, and we need safe, accessible spaces and places for youth work and connection to occur. We are calling for a national strategy on spaces for young people with a dedicated capital grant scheme for youth spaces and inclusion of youth work infrastructure in the national development plan. An all-of-government approach is needed to ensure that the youth sector receives adequate attention, and we need the committee's support. We want to ensure that young people in Ireland benefit as much as they can from opportunities for youth. Implementation must be clearly underpinned by clear links between actions and outcomes, with identified owners and funding streams, with the voice of young people embedded across every stage. Today we ask the committee to ensure this strategy has the resources, infrastructure and commitment required to deliver for young people.
Ms Mary Cunningham:
I thank the Chair, Deputies and Senators for the very kind words at the start. They are appreciated. I thank members for the opportunity to present today on behalf of the National Youth Council of Ireland. The National Youth Council of Ireland is the representative body for voluntary youth organisations in Ireland and our role is recognised in legislation.
As Ireland shapes its national approach to youth work, it is essential that any strategy or implementation plan is grounded in the lived realities, expertise and vision of the youth work sector. Youth work is a distinct, rights-based educational practice that supports young people’s personal and social development. It is most effective when it is co-created with those who deliver it and those who benefit from it.
The publication of Opportunities for Youth, the national strategy for youth work and related services, in September 2024 was a welcome step in terms of visibility and political recognition. However, there remain opportunities to strengthen the strategy’s content, clarity, and actionable commitments to better support youth work in Ireland. I would like to refer the committee to the action plan that NYCI has provided, which we, as a sector, compiled and submitted to the Secretary General of the Department of Education and Youth earlier this summer. I want to focus on two things, namely the implementation of strategy and purposeful structures for engagement between officials and the voluntary youth work sector.
Speaking at the launch of Opportunities for Youth last year, I told the audience that it had been almost nine years since I had stood on a similar platform at the launch of Ireland’s first ever national youth strategy, genuinely full of optimism and hope for the future for young people and youth work in Ireland. Sadly, that strategy was never implemented. I said that I was much more cautious at the launch of Opportunities for Youth because history tells us that in the absence of a strategy, execution is aimless and without execution, strategy is useless. Our track record on implementation is woeful. I highlighted that the challenge would be the pace of and process for implementation, recognising that at that point we were on the cusp of significant change, a new Government, a new Minister and, perhaps, youth affairs located in a new Department, not to mention the regular churn of officials and an under-resourced youth affairs unit. All of that has come true. We have a new Government, and more than 60 TDs have been elected for the first time. We have a new Minister in Deputy McEntee, and we have a new Departmental location for youth affairs, which NYCI is very supportive of. I highlighted then that delivery of 18 actions over a relatively short timescale was very challenging, and 14 months later that has remained the case. There has been no implementation plan produced.
While we have been asked here to talk about implementation of Opportunities for Youth, it is difficult to do so in the absence of an actual implementation plan. This is something the committee must raise with the Department. While I know I am not comparing like with like, we might look to First 5, the national early years strategy. The implementation plan for the latter, relating to the period 2023 to 2025, contains 125 actions that will be delivered by ten Departments, the HSE, Tusla and 31 delivery partners. Each action includes a defined 2025 output and annual milestones, monitored by the First 5 implementation office. Opportunities for Youth is much less complex, with 18 priority actions. So far, there is no implementation plan in respect of it. The strategy lacks clear milestones and indications as to how the implementation will be monitored and by whom. I welcomed reference to engage with youth organisations and young people regarding the implementation as a positive step in the right direction. While there has been ongoing ad hocengagement on a range of issues including the youth night pilot and preparations for the EU Presidency next year, there has not been a formal structure created to support the work. I reiterate that we are in the dark about when the implementation plan will be published, never mind how we will collaborate on the actions, and through what structure, so it is very hard to have confidence.
The youth work sector has experience, resources and talents to maximise our capacity to contribute to the implementation of the strategy and to support young people to reach their full potential and positively shape their own futures. Let us use Opportunities for Youth to harness and realise the value of youth work practice, build on what we know works and strengthen partnerships not just with youth affairs in the Department of Education and Youth, but with a number of other Departments and agencies that fund youth work and with our statutory colleagues in ETBs, in order that we can keep creating safe spaces for young people and delivering vibrant, fun and effective youth work that helps young people become the very best they can be.
As I have said many times and as I hope members appreciate, the challenge that remains is the pace of and process for implementation. We really need to get cracking. There must be a real commitment from the youth affairs unit, the Department of Education and Youth and the other key Departments and agencies to implementation and a concerted effort to lead and drive that implementation in partnership with the youth work sector and young people.
As already stated, there have been two budgets since Opportunities for Youth was launched and neither has given the priority funding needed for its implementation. We know that youth work can do a lot with a little, but the impact of the historical cuts in funding has been immense. We cannot deliver more and better youth work to young people without additional resources and investment. The youth work sector is resilient and resourceful but for how much longer? We need an implementation plan and we will need the funding to support it.
Ms Amy Carey:
I am the CEO of Solas Project, a youth work organisation in Dublin’s inner city. Along with many in the youth work sector, we welcome the transfer of youth affairs to the Department of Education and Youth. We believe this is an appropriate fit and a positive move for youth work.
Solas Project supports young people between the ages of five to 26. Last year, we worked with over 900 young people across a range of programmes and interventions. We work in communities that have faced significant disadvantage, and we support young people to overcome the societal inequalities they face and to create a brighter vision for their future. We believe that alongside formal education, youth work is a is a vital component of young people's holistic development, ensuring that they have the supports and opportunities needed to be able to reach their full potential.
Working in a community that has been underserved for generations and in which needs are high, our team is spending considerable time supporting young people in circumstances where other systems and statutory provisions are failing them. I know from colleagues across the sector that youth workers are filling significant gaps where young people are falling between the cracks in the context of inadequate services. For example, over the past few months, alongside the delivery of the programmes we are funded for, our youth workers have: sourced food for families experiencing food poverty; supported families in homelessness and in applying for housing; brought young people to school in the morning to make sure they get there; sat in on an expulsion meeting with a young person and principal as the only adult support available to them; supported young people contemplating suicide who were unable to access any suitable mental health services; provided wraparound supports to vulnerable families with child protection risks; accompanied young people and their families to both the Family Court and Criminal Court; and supported families experiencing domestic violence in navigating complex systems. This work is not recognised, and in many cases not valued, by our funding streams, but as youth workers we are invested in young people’s lives and as the people that they trust, we step in to advocate for them where statutory services are repeatedly letting them down.
We believe that the implementation of the first objective of the strategy, which refers to youth work being more visible and better aligned with other services, would go a long way to improving things for young people. We welcome the recent increase in the capital budget for youth work this year which falls in line with actions 10 and 13 of the strategy. The consultation process for the strategy found that one of the biggest issues for young people across the country is the lack of places for them to spend time.
Being based in the Liberties, an area experiencing significant gentrification, we face extreme challenges with premises, with a complete lack of suitable youth work space in the area. We currently work out of inadequate privately rented and costly premises. There is plenty of development taking place in our area but hotels and student accommodation are consistently prioritised over young people. We recently had a situation where large groups of young people were gathering outside a fast food restaurant in a residential area late into the night. At the request of local residents, our youth workers spent time on the street connecting with the young people. They invited them to leave the street and come to our space. However, they were too successful, and our space ended up being too small for the number of young people who came. Teenagers need to gather with their peers, and when we offer them no alternatives, they will do that on street corners. Then they are deemed as antisocial for acting no differently from their peers in other parts of the country who can spend time in their suitable housing, GAA clubs, or community halls, all of which are not available in our community.
At local forums, resourcing youth work is repeatedly recognised by gardaí, politicians and residents as the best antidote to antisocial behaviour. We are committed to our community and want to be able to provide all the supports needed for young people to flourish. However, without adequate resources we are limited in what we can achieve.
Schools are not expected to operate without school buildings, teachers are not expected to work without classrooms, and we are asking that youth services not be expected to operate without suitable youth work spaces.
We are calling for three things, namely for youth work to be recognised for the multiple ways it steps in to support young people when other services fail them, for the delivery of capital investment in youth work, including the urgent need for dedicated youth work premises for the young people of the south west inner city, and for youth work to be valued and adequately resourced.
Ms Rachael Murphy:
I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it on behalf of Foróige. We welcome the strategy because it recognises the vital role youth work has in improving outcomes for our young people. We also welcome it despite the fact that youth work’s history is littered with policy documents that have failed to be implemented.
Voluntary youth organisations provide the infrastructure for youth services, with Foróige supporting 173 specialist projects, 450 volunteer-led clubs and over 400 mentoring matches throughout the country, serving over 52,000 young people. However, it is interesting to note only a small percentage of Foróige's funding, 12%, comes from the Department of Education and Youth, with the remainder coming from other Departments, State agencies and corporate and philanthropic sources. Therefore, we appreciate the recognition that the strategy's vision and objectives require collaboration beyond the youth work sector and welcome the establishment of an interdepartmental group to consider a whole-of-government vision for youth work.
We need to prevent youth work from becoming a panacea for all the issues young people face. Youth work cannot take on the shortfalls left by other organisations with statutory responsibility for youth mental health or child protection services. Youth work’s role is to support young people on the basis of their voluntary participation in a way that aids their personal and social development and complements their formal education. It is essential that the youth work sector is involved in these developments. As a result, we welcome action 2 of the strategy relating to the establishment of a national youth sector reference group.
While Opportunities for Youth demonstrates commitment, we want to highlight that in the absence of additional and ongoing funding, the strategy, similar to the one that preceded it, risks failing to meet its objectives. Modest increases in youth affairs budgets have not constituted the significant investment needed to meet changing needs. Transformational investment in our young people is required.
We welcome action 12 of the strategy, which aims to promote, support and sustain volunteering. While the volunteer activation fund is welcome, it is a one-off pilot rather than the ongoing transformational investment required. Volunteer youth work is often the only youth work available to young people, particularly those in rural areas. We are all aware of the increasing complexity of young people’s lives and the challenges they face but local youth clubs are a traditional solution to a contemporary problem as they provide connection, community and capacity for our young people. However, they need enhanced and increased support on foot of the increasingly onerous requirements being placed on volunteer youth leaders. Beyond club activities, volunteers require training and support to manage their clubs in addition to accounting, banking, health and safety, insurance, data protection, child protection and fundraising responsibilities. The local youth club grant scheme, though welcome, does not cover the full costs of running a weekly club, meaning volunteers dedicate significant additional hours outside of direct youth work. Adequate funding for national organisations is required to allow them to provide support services to relieve the compliance burden on volunteers, allowing them to focus on what they do best, namely working directly with young people in their communities, which, in turn, should enhance the retention rate of volunteers.
We welcome action 7 on a workforce development strategy. However, while it addresses training needs and the requirement for high-quality, accessible youth work, it does not address the basic requirements of having a workforce, both paid and volunteer. There is an ongoing challenge in recruiting suitable candidates for professional youth work roles due to our inability to offer competitive terms and conditions. Current terms and conditions in the youth work sector are hampered by fixed-term contracts, part-time roles, funding insecurity and that youth work salaries are not benchmarked against public service pay and are not included in public service pay agreements. To enable action 7, these issues with basic terms and conditions must be resolved to demonstrate the value that is placed on youth work.
A crucial part of implementation must be improved data. This can be achieved by identifying relevant datasets, establishing easy collection and reporting mechanisms and streamlining requirements across funding schemes. At departmental level, investment in data collection and analysis is needed to inform policy and measure progress. We ask that funded youth organisations be involved in discussions about developing relevant metrics to ensure effective data capture and utilise systems that many organisations already have in place.
We are optimistic that Opportunities for Youth signifies a positive shift in Irish youth work policy and will be fully implemented. We believe it lays a foundation for future policy and are fully committed to working with the Department on its implementation.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms Murphy. We will now proceed to members’ questions. There are quite a number of members present, and there could be others joining us. Members will have six minutes each. I ask them to be aware that this includes time for people to respond. There are so many contributors here today that I need to keep things moving. As a result, people may hear a little tap of the glass. That means we have to move on. If time permits, before we conclude proceedings I will give everyone the opportunity to wrap up any loose ends in respect of matters that not have been fully covered. Deputy Roche is first. The Deputy has six minutes.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The witnesses are most welcome. I thank them for their very comprehensive statements, which were delivered in a very honest way. I have a number of questions which I will ask early so the witnesses can respond.
Ms Murphy stated that youth work is often expected to step in where other services like mental health or child protection fall short. What would she like to see the Government do to make sure youth workers are not left trying to fill the gaps?
Ms Rachael Murphy:
One of the key things is the whole-of-government approach to youth work and being clear about our boundaries. There are so many areas where investment is required for young people. These are outside of the scope of youth work. We know about the crisis in youth mental health. We are hearing about the crisis in primary care services. Young people have increasingly additional and complex needs. Youth work can support young people, but it cannot be the solution for all these crises. We need a whole-of-government approach. We need to focus on young people. We need to implement the youth strategy/ We need to invest in our young people. I am very clear that over the years youth work has very often stepped in because there was nobody else. Volunteer leaders stepped in. That is not good enough.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Ms Cunningham highlighted the lack of an implementation plan for the youth strategy. What needs to happen immediately to get that plan off the ground?
Ms Mary Cunningham:
We would suggest that the officials in youth affairs need to work with the voluntary youth sector and, indeed, with young people, to help inform the implementation plan rather than presenting one. As stated at the outset, it is about codesigning an implementation plan with people who have the relevant expertise and experience regarding what is actually practical.
We had a very good experience recently in relation to youth night. The pilot is happening on 21 November. We have been part of a working group, as have others around the table, working with officials in the Department sharing the knowledge and expertise about what is doable. That has worked for everybody. It has worked for the sector and for the officials. We will deliver something really meaningful. There is experience there that shows if you work with and involve from the outset you will come up with plans that are actionable and milestones, timelines, etc., that are realistic and doable.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Ms Carey described Solas Project as involving deep community relationships. How do you measure and demonstrate the impact of that work to show those who fund it and the public what youth work delivers? That is a pretty loaded question.
Ms Amy Carey:
It is a good question. We are trying to figure that out ourselves all the time. Youth work is something that is really hard to measure in terms of its impact. We obviously measure statistics and we can get feedback from young people and other partners. We do that, but often what is not recognised is the deeper work that youth work does.
We do that through capturing the stories of young people. We work in a long-term intervention model. We start working with young people at the age of five and work with them until they are in their mid-20s. As I have been in the role for longer, I have seen that it can take a decade before we see those deeper impacts. There are the small wins on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis of seeing your people being able to excel in areas, find their strengths and have new opportunities, but there is also the long-term work that we are doing. We are based in areas where the young people whom we are working with have many more challenges than many young people across the country. We are starting at a different point, so we are working with them to try to overcome the obstacles that they are facing, to hopefully be on par with their peers.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I will go to Ms Keane next. She mentioned the multi-annual funding being an essential component. What would SpunOut do differently or more efficiently if it had funding security?
Ms Sinéad Keane:
With multi-annual funding, SpunOut and other services would be able to plan ahead, look to the future and create projects, campaigns and schemes that are longer than 12 months. Sometimes when you receive funding and it is annual, you might get the funding and by the time you have recruited someone and put the plans in place, you might have someone in a role for eight months instead of the full 12. We would be able to plan ahead. It would also allow space for innovation in the sector, to look into the future and see how you might respond to emerging needs of young people across the youth sector.
Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I would love to have gone to Dr. Burke but time has caught me. I might get another run at it later on.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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It is great to see representation from so many bodies. I thank the witnesses for their opening statements. I come from Roscommon and I have worked closely with Youth Work Ireland, Foróige and the National Youth Council. They all have representation down there and their staff on the ground deserve huge credit for what they are doing. I just want to put that on the record. Ms Keane mentioned providing young people with accurate information. We are in a time now when people are competing for so much information. We are constantly dealing with it. She mentioned that there was a collaboration project between the National Youth Council, SpunOut and one or two other bodies. Do the five bodies here today work collaboratively on anything themselves rather than just the national youth strategy? Are they constantly engaging with one another? They are indeed. Are they directly competing with one another for resources in each locality?
Ms Mary Cunningham:
The answer to those questions is "Yes". In recent years, there have been many examples of where organisations have worked collaboratively. The National Youth Council as a representative body would be encouraging and supporting our member organisations to work collaboratively, both with us and with each other, recognising that we are stronger together.
On the Senator's point about competing for resources, it is a very competitive funding environment, so the answer to that is "Yes". The youth information one is a specific project that I think it is worth Ms Keane speaking on it with regard to how the organisations work together to jointly deliver the youth information service.
Ms Sinéad Keane:
We work collaboratively with Youth Work Ireland, with Dr. Burke and Crosscare to deliver youth information chats. This is a service that was set up in 2020, at the beginning of Covid, to offer that kind of space for young people to come and have chats with youth information officers about issues that matter to them, for example, finances and employment. They would be able to get real-time personalised support on issues that were important to them. In the last year, we had more than 1,000 chats on the service. There is a real demand and need for it. Like the Senator said, young people, like us all, go online and it can be hard to know if what we are reading is accurate or not, so having dedicated youth information officers who are provided by the different organisations here helps. We had SpunOut look after youth engagement on the marketing and technology side. Dr. Burke might be able to speak more about youth information officers.
Dr. Patrick J. Burke:
The chat service is available on young people's phones, computers or on whatever device they might have access to. They can type in a request, seek a formal meeting or access a qualified youth information officer in an office if they so wish. What they are not getting is a bot; they are getting a human being. That is central because on many occasions we have had to fight for the life of youth information as a scheme because people said that they could get all of that information online now. The critical issue is accompanying young people to access information in the first place, then to verify the source of that information and ensure that it is quality information and not misinformation or disinformation. That requires the skills that are honed over years of training with the youth information officers.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I have two minutes left and that was the first one. Ms Keane has been in front of the AI committee already. Through this, I know she is calling for the Government to start gathering data to better understand what is needed in youth work and improve the outcomes. What data is collected and how it is collected will be important. I will move that one on because of the time.
Going back to staff, when we look at childcare, I totally understand that whenever there is a gap in these sectors and an issue arises, it is always the youth worker who is thrown in there, and quite often it is the voluntary youth worker. They do an exceptional job because they believe in what they are doing, but the skillset is the issue. What needs to change to make youth work a viable long-term career for people?
Ms Rachael Murphy:
In the strategy, we welcome the fact that the work is valued. That is a really good, positive recognition. The bottom line is that we need to be valued. The work that professional youth workers and volunteer youth workers do day-in, day-out up and down the country supporting our young people, needs to be valued. It is difficult to see the political will to value it. We are told it is valued, that it is great and it is brilliant, but in real terms, as Ms Cunningham alluded to, the budget for youth work has not increased significantly. It needs substantial investment. Our young people deserve that from the Government. So far, despite our pleas and lobbying, we have failed to achieve that or the Government has failed to invest in youth work to the extent that is required.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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It is probably down to the witnesses' organisations' success in accessing alternative funding, which is holding them back from getting that. It is a backhanded compliment to the witnesses and the work that they are doing, unfortunately.
Ms Mary Cunningham:
The challenge in being able to attract and retain people in youth work is that it is increasingly difficult to balance life and work, which is quite different from work-life balance. Where you have short-term contracts and uncertainty about whether the funding will continue the following year, you will not be able to take out a car loan, never mind take out a mortgage. Of course, people aspire to all of the milestones that we would all want in life. That is getting increasingly difficult. We are now not able to compete with other parts of the public sector that are attracting youth workers.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in and giving their comprehensive opening statements. There were many common themes across them. I know they said it was over a year since the strategy was launched and there was no sign of the implementation plan yet. Have they any indication of when we will see that implementation plan? There is no point in having an excellent strategy if you do not have an implementation plan with, as the witnesses said, realistic targets and timelines and the resources to follow it up. Do we have any indication of where it is?
Ms Mary Cunningham:
The officials and Minister have talked about their commitment to implementation.
The move from the Department of children, equality, etc., to the Department of Education and Youth definitely has delayed things. Even allowing for that, it is really hard for us to see what the process they are putting in place to develop an implementation plan is. There is certainly no indication as to what that process might be.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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I suggest that we, as a committee, write to the Minister asking for an update on what is happening with the implementation plan. As I said, it is pointless launching a strategy and then, almost a year and a half later, still not having an implementation plan. The last strategy was not implemented in full either. That needs to be prevented this time. We need to see the strategy there.
It is alarming that the funding has not even recovered to pre-austerity levels. It was said funding was €100 million in 2008 but is only €85 million - I presume that is with inflation - today. We need to see proper funds across the board.
I visited a youth club in Clones with a physical space where young people could go and hang out. It is an excellent facility. Having said that, the building could do with improvements. The club says it is grasping and looking for funding. Is there no form of capital funding for new buildings or to restore buildings at the moment?
Dr. Patrick J. Burke:
The difficulty is that it very much depends on where you are living and the initiative of the local community in which you are living. Over the years, very proactive communities have found ways of funding services for young people in their communities, and then in other areas there is nothing. That is why we have been calling for a national strategy that would deliver spaces dedicated specifically to young people. There are all sorts of models out there that could be used well in partnership with other State agencies, local authorities and even private developers and what have you. The bottom line, however, is that not every young person has access to a service, either a local community hall or even a dedicated youth space. That has to be prioritised.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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I know. I was a leader in Foróige in days of yore and we used the local hall for the couple of hours on a Friday evening, but there was no space for young people just to gather, drop in, relax and have a chat otherwise. Every town and village in the country has vacant properties that have been lying idle for years. A little vision could see some of those properties taken by the State and restored as spaces for youth.
Ms Rachael Murphy:
If I may interject there, we have had some successes where county councils have taken that on and we have seen the repurposing of old buildings into youth spaces, for example, the old post office in Castlebar or the old bank in Portlaoise. That involves the will of the county councils as well. We would welcome any support we can get for county councils to repurpose some of those buildings that can be turned into fabulous spaces. We will not get one in every town and village but at least we could have hubs with sufficient transport links. I recognise TFI and the work it has done-----
Ms Rachael Murphy:
-----with some of its late-night services in rural areas. Young people should have a local space to go to and then a hub space to go to, out of which maybe more specialised services could be operated. That would be the ideal, but it takes political will, it takes vision and it takes co-operation with the likes of county councils and the OPW to repurpose some of those buildings.
Ms Mary Cunningham:
A small capital fund was established last year for youth organisations to apply to. The officials in the Department of youth affairs fought really hard to establish the principle of a capital fund as part of the budget funding, but it is a small amount of money. You are not going to build an extension with it. You will probably be able to replace equipment or that sort of thing. The argument we are making is that, within the youth affairs funding, there will never be significant infrastructure capital funding and, therefore, that needs to be in the national development plan.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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Yes, it does. Also, the application process for those grants or any funds needs to be simplified by for every agency across the board, no matter what Department they are applying to. Sometimes, the paperwork is so off-putting, you would wonder if it was designed that way for a reason.
In relation to youth workers, Ms Keane says that it is difficult to recruit and nearly even more difficult to retain staff, that that has to do with pay and that the pay is not benchmarked against anything. Is there not a process now, though? It is mentioned in the strategy. Is that what the witnesses are saying?
Ms Rachael Murphy:
In the strategy, the only mention is of the workforce development plan. There is precedent there. We have seen it with the section 39-funded organisations and the agreement that was reached in the WRC. That does not seem to be applied to youth work organisations or funding for youth work organisations, which is a challenge. Some of our funding comes from section 39 organisations, for example. There is no benchmarking at the moment. We believe, as Dr. Burke alluded to, that youth work is non-formal education. It deserves parity of esteem with education. We are looking for some level of benchmarking of youth work salaries, as Ms Cunningham says, to allow people to live. As regards the cost of living in Dublin, whether trying to get a mortgage or trying to rent a place, two-bedrooms units are now going for over €2,000.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Just to confirm, Senator, you have-----
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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-----requested an update on the implementation plan.
Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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Yes, and the process that has been used.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I second the proposal.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Happy days. Perfect.
The next member to speak is Senator Joe Conway.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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Just following on from what the last couple of speakers were talking about and the parity of esteem with formal education workers, is there a formalised training regimen for youth workers anywhere?
Ms Mary Cunningham:
There is a professional endorsement body that operates on an all-island basis called North-South Education and Training Standards. It professionally endorses youth work education at third level on the island of Ireland. Those courses are delivered in Maynooth University, UCC, DkIT and Ulster University. It is a collaborative process involving work to develop the standards and the professional formation requirements that individuals who want to go into the youth work profession need in order to do the work. It is-----
Joe Conway (Independent)
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Do these qualifications exist on the national qualifications-----
Joe Conway (Independent)
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Very good. How many graduates are there every year, roughly?
Joe Conway (Independent)
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That is fine. Do those graduates have a Republic, a Northern Ireland or an all-Ireland professional representative body?
Joe Conway (Independent)
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Is there any tic-tacking with trade unions to-----
Ms Mary Cunningham:
That is a very interesting question. There is some tic-tacking with unions. In the past while, NYCI has begun conversations with unions. As regards the issue in relation to a representative body, there is definitely an appetite for it but you cannot do that unless you have resources. Everybody has really busy jobs and people will do stuff in good faith and pull things together, but in order to be able to progress, it needs to be resourced.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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Fairly recently, we had people in here representing the school secretaries. For a long time, they were not represented but then they got themselves represented by Fórsa and made significant strides.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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-----but there seems to be scope there. That is good to hear.
I heard somebody, maybe Ms Keane, say - and I might have picked this up wrong - that Ireland was the loneliest place in Europe for youth. Where did the witnesses get the statistical basis to make that claim?
Ms Sinéad Keane:
It was not from our own statistics; it was from an EU survey. I can provide the Senator with the details of it afterwards. I do not have the name to hand. There is a growing body of research around this, unfortunately.
Spunout runs a 24-7 crisis text line. More than 45,000 young people have contacted us to date this year. Unfortunately, loneliness is one of the top issues. One in five of them is experiencing it. We are seeing a real tip from what we would traditionally have talked about, that is the elderly population experiencing loneliness. Now we are seeing young people experience higher levels of loneliness and isolation.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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Is it not very subjective? A lot of these human conditions are self-descriptive, so one 15-year-old describing themselves as being lonely might have a completely different presentation from another. Is it very difficult to get a handle on an umbrella term like loneliness. It seems like an immensely depressing handle to throw at the youth of Ireland, that they are the loneliest people in Europe. They may be self-describing and it is subjective.
Ms Sinéad Keane:
It is also important to say that we all feel lonely occasionally, but persistent loneliness can have huge impacts on the mental health of young people. What we have heard in those conversations and seen in our research is that it most often co-occurs with stress, sadness and other mental health challenges. It is not just sitting by itself, so to speak. A whole variety of other mental health challenges come hand in hand with those feelings of loneliness.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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Do the witnesses think there is any dimension of the snowflake syndrome coming in, that people describe themselves as lonely and neglected when that might not be what is at issue at all?
Ms Sinéad Keane:
It is important to listen to the lived experiences of young people and believe what they say. In this case, we are hearing them tell us through many different sources - I will supply the Senator with them following the meeting - that this is how they are feeling. It is important. As youth organisations, we believe in the power of the youth voice and what young people are telling us. In this instance, that is very much how I look at it.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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Ms Carey talked about her work in the Liberties, about the business of the south-west inner city and the onset of the problems of gentrification and the evaporation of working spaces that are available. Does Ms Carey know whether that is replicated in other cities, such as Waterford, Limerick or Galway?
Ms Amy Carey:
I am not an expert on other cities. I can speak about my experience in the Liberties, which is one of the oldest communities in the country. During the time I have been working there, the past 15 years, I have seen massive change. Some has been for the good, but a lot has been negative. There has been a lot of investment in business, development and the tourism industry. That is needed but it has been at the expense of the local community that has lived there for generations. A lot of the people there are now being moved out or cannot get suitable accommodation in their community and we are losing a lot of history and the culture of the area. It is becoming quite generic.
Joe Conway (Independent)
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We are out of time and the Cathaoirleach will be getting edgy.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, there will be a second round.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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No, the Senator will get a second round
Joe Conway (Independent)
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It is unrelated to the subject matter. It is a very small item. Can we tell the facilities unit that the doors are fierce noisy here and we are losing a lot? I have to go.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I am up next. I thank the witnesses for being here. One of the early considerations of the committee was that it is easy for a committee to go into the depths of education, but we are conscious that the committee and its parent Department include youth in their remit. Someone used the term "parity of esteem", which we first heard in public life around the Good Friday Agreement, but it is important. When a general election happens and a government is formed, Departments get redefined. Youth is in the committee's Department now and it is at risk at times of being overshadowed by education, given how large the sphere of education is.
I thank the witnesses for their work. I can attribute to the National Youth Council of Ireland that I am here today. It got me on the first rung of political life. The Nice treaty had been rejected by the people of Ireland. Bertie Ahern was Taoiseach. A forum was set up in Dublin Castle and the National Youth Council of Ireland was there. I was the youngest of three young people there. Leo Varadkar was one and the others were Lucinda Creighton and me. There was someone else who will have to forgive me if they are tuned in, because I cannot remember their name. Varadkar and Creighton did well and I am struggling on. I suppose the NYCI helped to turn a shy teenager into someone who felt a little empowered. I know from the many young people I have met over the years in all the witnesses' organisations that they get a bit of an X factor from working with youth workers, so I thank the witnesses for all they do.
My first question is for Ms Carey. The Solas Project is just across the river and in the city. It would be great if the committee could pay a visit to its facility some morning. I propose that this be done if it can be facilitated. It is often lauded how well the inner city is looking. New shiny buildings are popping up and we are bringing in financial and tech industries. However, we want youth work to exist among the oldest communities, so it would be great if the committee could be facilitated. Perhaps some of the project's colleagues could be hosted that day so we can see this in action.
A point was made in a couple of the opening statements that there is an existential crisis in youth work when it comes to funding, keeping people there and being there for young people. Is youth work excessively focused on urban areas? I am asking Ms Carey, but some of the others might comment as well. It is largely believed that in rural areas there are pitches and community halls and something to do, but that assumes that young people are homogenous and all pick up a hurley, go down the road and behave well in the local community hall. However, that is not the case. There is a lack of facilities in many communities. Is it a fair criticism that, not by design or intent, but maybe because of a lack of funding or a lack of a spiderweb of resources, youth workers become focused on urban environments and urban disadvantaged environments in particular. Is that a fair criticism?
Ms Amy Carey:
Youth work has a role and as Dr. Burke said, every young person should have access to youth work. It has a particular role in disadvantaged areas and it is probably a slightly different role and a slightly different type of youth work that needs to take place in those areas. However, youth work should not be contained in any one community. On resources, I spoke about young people having spaces in other parts of the country and in other cities. As well as having youth work provision, young people in every community should have a space they can call their own. Particularly in our part of the city, that has not been the case.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I have spoken at the committee in the past about the cliff edge young people face when they turn 18 or 19. Society hopes they will get a career, an apprenticeship or go to college, but many people who have been well supported by youth work, social work and CAMHS, and had many different agencies plugged into their lives, are suddenly and quickly unplugged from those agencies when they reach the age of 18 and are out in the big world. How unplugged do the witnesses' organisations feel when someone leaves youth and becomes an adult?
Ms Rachael Murphy:
We are lucky that the ages covered by youth work are ten to 24. Youth justice projects go up to 24 as well, so young people do not age out at 18. They are allowed to make a gradual transition. The whole idea of youth work is to enable young people to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. However, as we all know, adulthood does not automatically start at 18 and young people are now not finishing school until they are 19. Luckily youth work has the flexibility to go beyond the age of 18. It does not just kick them out.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I hope we will all get in again, but I will ask my final question of this segment. To what extent are youth workers back-filling gaps in mental health services and child protection? Are they kind of sticking plasters on scenarios where other agencies are letting children down?
Somebody may be able to encapsulate that.
Ms Amy Carey:
We are doing it every day. I have mentioned a number of the ways we do it. In my opening statement, I listed about ten different things, and I had a list of a lot more that I cut down because time is short. It includes mental health services, child protection services and education supports for young people, which are gaps that our youth workers are covering every day.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Beyond being morally wrong, is that dangerous?
Ms Amy Carey:
Ms Murphy made the point that we are covering gaps. At the end of the day, we have a young person in front of us with a need. While other services might see that as a safe space, that young person is someone we know. It is a young person who trusts us, a family that knows us, and we are not going to turn our backs on them. In that way, we get stuck, and we get landed with a lot of things we should not get landed with.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I have some more questions. Hopefully, I will get in again later. Thank you. I call Deputy Cummins.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I welcome the witnesses. As some people know, I was a youth worker for a number of years. It is great that youth work is back with the education brief. It is fantastic to have the witnesses here. I thank them for their opening statements. It was very enlightening for members of the committee to hear what youth work is, why it has to exist and does exist, and the benefits that go with that.
I will speak to the question on the legislation, in particular the part about loneliness, which was dealt with in the EU-LS 2022. It is important to understand the level of need out there for young people. A statement that somebody is lonely should be believed. It is so important. They are lonely. It is not just because of Covid. Covid is blamed for everything. Young people were lonely in this country well before Covid and have been lonely since. Youth work and having that third space, which is a great name for it, are vital.
For many young people, youth services are not available because there is such a shortage. I know they are there in disadvantaged areas, and they are specifically there for young people who come from a disadvantaged background. I am glad that Ms Carey is here today from the Solas Project in my own constituency. The work it does in the Liberties is vital. At every single meeting that we go to, as public representatives, youth workers are there with gardaí and Dublin City Council to plug the gaps. As Ms Murphy said with regard to all of the things that do not exist for young people, youth workers are doing that. Whether it is safe or not is a different question. The point is that it has to be delivered by youth workers because they have the relationship.
On top of having the relationship, they have the ability to tap into other services in the community. In communities like the one I am from, the capital that other families might have is not there for them. They do not know how to access services, so youth workers do that for them. That is why they go to the different meetings. Ms Carey mentioned in her opening statement going to the meeting in the school about the expulsion because the families are not able to do that. That is the reality. We can dress it up and say that youth work is all singing and dancing. Actually, at its core, youth work is being there, and it is sometimes being the only person available for that young person. That is a stark reality in 2025 in Ireland. The youth worker is the only person there.
I have one question. This is the Joint Committee on Education and Youth. Hopefully, DEIS+ is going to happen. Where is youth work going to fit into that? In my constituency, St. Ultan's is fantastic. It has an after-school service that is immersed within the school, it has a school completion programme immersed within it, and it has all the services there. Some of us are taking a trip to Finland to see how the Finnish education system immerses all of these support services within the school system as a central location for that. How do the witnesses see DEIS+ and youth work coming together? I know that for a while, youth work was removed from schools, and I think that was a mistake. How do the witnesses feel it is going to work now?
Ms Mary Cunningham:
I will begin and my colleagues can chip in. That is an excellent question, and I do not think we have the answer to it yet. One of the things the NYCI is doing is facilitating a conversation with our member organisations to explore what we are calling some of the guiding lights that youth work will want to protect in its practice and the values that it holds as that agenda around DEIS and DEIS+ emerges. I know there is a particular concern about, for example, falling school attendance and, potentially, it might be seen that youth work could plug that gap. Given that youth work is about working where the young person is at, and about being young person-led, what youth work would want to do is to go much further back with that young person. We would want to know what the problems are, what the challenge is and what is not working, rather than saying we need to get the young person to school. Certainly, the sector is at an early stage in that conversation.
The Deputy is right that there was close to a directive for youth work not to engage with schools on the basis that if schools wanted youth work, let them pay for it. That is why we have talked about a whole-of-government approach and a holistic approach to meeting the needs of young people. Given that youth organisations are about meeting the needs of young people, quite a lot of work continues to go on in terms of supporting young people to stay in school. That might be making sure they are fed, clean and ready to go to school, and that they have a place to do homework or the opportunity to have something to eat and talk to somebody about what has happened in school that day. I would like us to be able to capture some of that as well, but that work was almost kind of underground.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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It is a pity that people do not know about youth work. When it works perfectly, nobody knows it exists because it is there to plug all those gaps. People know about it when it is more mainstream and the other things come in.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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Of course. That connection is important as well.
Dr. Patrick J. Burke:
It really is. We need people like the committee members to acknowledge that youth work in itself is a social good. It does not have to do something; that is what they call the instrumentalisation of youth work. It does not need to be an instrument. It is good for a young person just to be part of a group on a Friday night and enjoy that. The State has a responsibility to provide that as a minimum. Beyond that, of course, youth work can be used to achieve social goods in the areas of justice, dropping out of school and so on. However, these things are very clear. In itself, youth work needs to be acknowledged independently as a social good and have the same parity of esteem with the formal sector. Once we have that, we can build on these other areas and get the clarity the Deputy is quite rightly asking for.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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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?
Dr. Patrick J. Burke:
There are a number of projects out there. I am delighted the Senator mentioned Galway. It is the only substantial city in the country where we do not have one dedicated space for young people. It is a scandal that needs to be addressed. I agree with the Senator on that. In some research we are carrying out at the moment, we are looking at the models that are there. For example, in Leitrim, there are a number of heritage buildings.
There is an old station house and an old courthouse. We obviously want to keep those as heritage buildings, but they have been reimagined by young people as really creative and lovely youth spaces. That involves co-operation between ourselves, as a member youth service, the local authority and the LEADER programme. That is one model. In Cork, there are developers that are not only providing crèches and community spaces but also youth spaces. That is another model. Some of the churches are donating buildings. The challenge is developing those into appropriate centres and youth-friendly spaces. There are models out there, but what we do not have is a national strategy. There is no one looking at this holistically and saying this is how we move forward with all those models.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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On the lack of an implementation plan and an oversight body to monitor implementation, I go back to what Dr. Burke said about youth work in general being a social good. What kind of oversight body would Ms Cunningham recommend? It is a question of striking a balance between avoiding unnecessary red tape and unnecessary layers and making sure that we get value for money and that the people who need help are getting it. What kind of a structure would Ms Cunningham recommend in that regard?
Ms Mary Cunningham:
There was a structure previously, which is provided for in legislation, namely the National Youth Work Advisory Committee. It involved representatives from the voluntary youth sector and officials and representatives from what were then the VECs, from FÁS and from other agencies. It worked. It was very focused. The development plan for youth work in Ireland came out of it, as did child protection guidelines and the national quality standards framework. There was an effective body in place. There were robust conversations, which is a really healthy thing. It was stood down and nothing has replaced it. There is provision in this strategy for what is called a reference group but we have not seen any draft terms of reference and the sector has not been involved in informing what those draft terms of reference might be.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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There is one final thing I would say in that regard. It is something Sara Ní Chuirreáin mentioned to me last night. I had a chat with her and she said that, particularly in some areas where mental health issues are hugely taboo, particularly for young men, there is a huge need for a discreet setting where wraparound services for young people are all provided in the same physical building. That could be considered.
Ms Murphy mentioned that youth workers cannot be a panacea, and I agree with her. From the point of view of early intervention and tackling issues in their infancy before they become huge embedded issues in young people, should there be more upskilling and training opportunities for youth workers? To take teachers as an example, an awful lot of teachers do the guidance counselling course. In many cases, that empowers them to see early stage mental health issues developing in young people in the classroom setting. Would something of a similar nature for youth workers would be of assistance?
Ms Rachael Murphy:
Professional youth workers are quite well taken care of in this area. It is an issue for volunteer youth workers. Volunteers are part of the community and know their young people. They have known them since they were five or six. Upskilling and investment in volunteers is required because they are the ones who can signpost people to the more specialised services for young people. I am talking about youth services where there is a need for a professional youth worker to intervene. It is definitely the volunteer youth sector that needs the investment.
Ms Mary Cunningham:
It is also about universal youth work because, if you are talking about early intervention and prevention, that arises in universal youth work. Someone asked earlier whether there was more focus on youth work in more disadvantaged areas and for people who face more challenges. The answer to that is absolutely "Yes". You need both.
Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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The word "snowflake" was thrown out. When I was a teacher, I saw very troubled young people. What the witnesses are doing is invaluable for society at large. I thank them all for coming in today.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We would all agree with that.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I applaud the witnesses on their submissions and on the work they do. I also take the opportunity to thank all of the youth workers in Dublin West, who do incredible work on the ground for their communities and for young people.
I am of a very similar view in that I feel universal youth services have suffered in recent years. There is a legacy issue there. I grew up in Tyrone. We had a youth club and that is where we all went during the summer holidays. That is where your first discos were. It was where the childcare, all the clubs and so on were. Young people are really missing out in not having access to youth clubs in their communities. Dr. Burke's submission nails it in that it is a social right. Those young people need to belong and not just when they are at school or in their GAA club or any other club. They need to be able to find the space where they belong. I have seen funding in recent years. For instance, funding for youth justice services in Dublin increased by 143% between 2019 and 2023. That is great, but it is targeted support. I do not like the idea that a young person has to fall off the cliff before there is intervention. If there is a culture and ecosystem of youth services, early intervention is a part of that but it is done in a very informal way. They are there to support people in moments of crisis before they develop a long-term problem. I see many social benefits to youth work.
It was said that the strategy was launched but there was no implementation plan. Is it normal that there would not be an implementation plan?
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It is in youth work. Are there implementation plans in all other sectors? What Ms Cunningham said about First 5 was really powerful. That has obviously been a great success. It is only 18 priority actions. Is it normal that there would not be an implementation plan?
Ms Mary Cunningham:
There is talk of producing an implementation plan. Our concern is that, 14 months later, it has not appeared and that there is no evidence of it. When talking about First 5, we are not really comparing like with like. There is a really determined and focused commitment to the implementation of First 5. Unless you have that, unless you have very clear milestones, unless the people who are accountable are identified and unless there is accountability in the system with regard to implementation, it will just be another strategy to add to add to previous strategies in youth work that have not been implemented.
Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It does not make sense that there would be a strategy for First 5 and so much focus on early learning and school-age care if, as soon as they leave the school building or become teenagers, young people are not given the same supports. There was an increase of €8 million in the budget this year. Some €100 million has been spent. There was an allocation of €72 million in 2008 and we are now at €85 million. Will Ms Cunningham speak to the budget situation as it is now? I suppose it makes her feel this area is still not being prioritised if there is no implementation plan and if there is not the same budget for services.
Ms Mary Cunningham:
At the time of the crash, youth work suffered really badly. Over successive years, funding was cut by 40%. The impact of that was not really that evident because, where youth workers' paid hours were being reduced, they were supplementing that with voluntary hours to try to meet the needs of the young people. That makes it really difficult when you are trying to make your case. Nobody in youth work is going to down tools, notwithstanding the point that was made about potentially needing to organise ourselves. A youth centre is not going to close and leave young people without a facility or service. Across the country, including in youth information, people's hours have been cut because there is just not enough funding.
There have been year-on-year increases in the funding over the past five years or so. However, on the value of the money,, 2011 was kind of when the cuts were arrested. Then there were a number of years when there was no significant increase, but the cuts had stopped. The amount of money that is funding youth work currently is at about the same level as 2011. As a result, it is not addressing the need to develop new services and expand existing services, the growing population of young people and the increasingly complex needs of some young people. To give an example in relation to the purpose of youth night - it is a really excellent opportunity, and I hope members of the committee will take the opportunity to visit their local youth organisations on 21 November - what we really needed to make clear to the Department was that it cannot be about generating additional demand because there is no supply to meet it.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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This is a really important area of focus. I am based in the Meath East constituency. We have a really young population there. In the context of absolutely every measure, we have a huge inadequacy of services for young people. I will be going into the House later to talk to the Taoiseach about disability services for young people and about general practice. It is across the board.
I was a county councillor before I became a TD. I can still hear the parents saying to me that the kids are grown up now and that it is too late for them. There are just so many of them. It is very frustrating. At worst, we are failing children by not giving them the opportunity to avail of services their peers in other places might be. There is huge unmet need and it is one of those pieces in politics where I would be critical of the Government in terms of its appreciation of the importance of the sector and the work it does. An awful lot in politics revolves around the Government versus the Opposition aspect, but I feel like that and there is a huge amount I can point to in relation to it.
I heard everything the witnesses said about the long history of this and the need for not just a strategy but for something to come out of it in terms of implementation. One of the key pieces I see around implementation is the establishment of a national youth sector reference group and the potential opportunity there for the Department to engage in proper co-creation, co-development and co-implementation. How would the witnesses like to see that take shape so it does not become like a tick-box exercise? We are familiar with that ladder of engagement and involvement. Will the witnesses give me their sense of the importance of that platform or forum and what it might look like from their perspective if they were advising the Minister, for example?
Ms Mary Cunningham:
In order to ensure it is as effective as possible and meets the needs of all the key stakeholders, including the Department, it has to be co-created. It probably does not matter what it is called, but a reference group seems an unusual choice compared with, say, and advisory group. It certainly merits a meaningful conversation about what its expectations are and what ours are in terms of the work. With the National Youth Work Advisory Committee, previously, there was a subcommittee structure that did a lot of heavy lifting. There were things that happened that would have been very different had the National Youth Work Advisory Committee not informed it. I refer, for example, to the roll-out of the National Quality Standards Framework for Youth Work, which was developed in partnership. It took longer because it does, but rather than you getting a document tabled for people to comment on you actually begin to build it up from the ground. By the time it came to be piloted, there was massive buy-in. That is really what you want to be securing. Whatever the decisions, whatever the implementation looks like there is very significant buy-in and commitment from the sector and from others to making it work.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Is Foróige's perspective the same?
Ms Rachael Murphy:
It is similar. We would like to see, where there is a space, conversations and co-creation. The youth sector has to recognise the role of the Department and its statutory responsibilities and it has to respect our expertise in this area, which it does. We can point to previous successes. The previous youth strategy was very good - it was co-created by the Department, other Departments and the youth sector - but the implementation, not so much. Again, it is about anything where the youth sector has a voice and that voice is respected and valued. It will not always be listened to.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I am conscious of time. I have not heard from everybody. I made a general point at the outset, which was kind of a sideswipe, but when we talk about the education system, we look at Finland. In the youth sector, is there a place the witnesses look towards and say that is where we need to be?
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Can I ask something in relation to that in my last 20 seconds? I assume strong municipalities, strong local government, is a feature in those places.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I do not mean in the sense of delivering youth services or youth work, but strong local government in terms of-----
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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In terms of space, raising moneys and having budgets themselves to resource this. I thank the witnesses.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We will shortly go into the second round of questions. Deputy Ní Raghallaigh will have six minutes and then we will go to Deputies Cummins, O'Rourke and then me. Other members may come in as well.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaorileach. Míle buíochas leis na finnéithe as teacht isteach. I have a couple of things that have not been raised and that I would like to get their opinion on.
I have met a lot of youth groups in my constituency of Kildare South and they are doing fantastic work so I wanted to note that. There are the Hive and InSync. I met Crooked House Theatre Company which does work with youths while not specifically being a youth work organisation. There is fantastic work going on there. The common theme was funding or the lack thereof. The majority of the groups' funding was going on renting their spaces. I met the NYCI and it mentioned the importance of multi-annual funding as well. Maybe the witnesses could walk us through how that would make their year-to-year operations more effective. At the outset, Dr. Burke mentioned information rights, which was very interesting. I do not think I have heard it come up again. Youth information as a distinct strand of youth work is a really important piece. We see so much about the youth online and the far right. If Dr. Burke wants to talk more about that I would be very interested. I would love to hear about special education and inclusion as well as I do not think it has come up yet.
My brief is special education. I taught in primary school for years, so I would love to hear about that. I have a special interest in an Ghaeilge. Is there much need for or resources for Gaeilge? We have been talking about the Kneecap effect a lot lately. That is increasing, so I would love to hear about an Ghaeilge and youth.
Dr. Patrick J. Burke:
I will kick off with youth information. There is a stream of funding from the Department specifically for youth information, but it has not increased for many years. In order to deliver, it needs to increase because it was under review. That review has taken place but has not been published yet. We are very hopeful that it will because, as the Deputy said, it has become very important that young people know where they can go to find information they can trust and to be accompanied on the road of learning to understand how to develop a skill around looking at sources of information and then making decisions based on good quality information.
We have human beings who are youth workers by profession but they are also extremely well networked among themselves. They constantly undergo training at a national level but also European level, through ERYICA which is a European network that looks after youth information. All of that infrastructure is there but there is not adequate funding. They are on reduced hours - sometimes only half the time doing that and half the time doing something else. That is really critical. The work with SpunOut has been hugely important in that it has the potential to reach a huge number of young people but we lack a budget for advertising to buy Google ads to promote it online. We lack a person dedicated to the technology needed to support that in SpunOut.
We lack human beings; I think we only have 16 in the country who are really dedicated to this work, which is tiny. Not every county has a dedicated person. This is a critical piece. This institution is dedicated to making sure we have good citizens who understand how to engage in democracy. All of that is about the heart of youth information. That is what these youth information officers do on a daily basis. It desperately needs to be funded. I encourage the committee to do what it can to promote the need to support youth information.
Ms Sinéad Keane:
I reiterate what Dr. Burke said that having the findings of that review of youth information published would be really helpful for us in terms of planning. At SpunOut we collaborate with a number of organisations around the youth information officers. We also reach over 800,000 young people with verified and youth-proofed youth information online through our information and resources as well. That is there 24-7. People are not talking to a person but they are looking at information sheets and resources. It is all fed into by what young people are telling us they want to learn about. It is verified by professionals and then youth-proofed to make sure it is speaking to the audience as well.
Ms Rachael Murphy:
I am delighted the Deputy brought up the question about Gaeilge. One of the advantages of being in the Department of education is that it commissioned and last week launched a strategy about the use of Irish. Included in that is youth work which is fantastic to see. Just recently we have created three projects in Mayo and Kerry which are purely through Irish. In addition to that, as a result of our engagement with the Department of education on its strategy, we are looking to promote the Irish language through our everyday youth work activities so that it is not just in school but it is all these other fun ways of using and learning Irish.
The Deputy is dead right about the Kneecap strategy. I have to tell the story about two young lads in a youth diversion project in Donegal who would not be fond of school. They approached our youth worker and said, "Can we not do this through Irish?" We need to capitalise on that and ensure that Irish becomes a working language. We are also linking with small Irish-speaking organisations to see how we can learn from them in the promotion of the language by weaving it into the everyday.
Ms Mary Cunningham:
NYCI has a number of Irish-language youth organisations among its membership. They are delighted, as we are, that the profile of the Irish language has been raised recently. The point they would want me to make on their behalf is that a lot of the focus is on increasing funding for the Gaeltacht. Their point is that there are more young people outside the Gaeltacht who want to speak Irish and that the funding should not be exclusively for there. We are engaged with the youth affairs unit at their request. They asked us to put in a proposal with regard to the translation of a number of key resources which are available in English but not available in Irish. We have submitted that proposal so it is very welcome.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We will have a second round of questions so the Deputy will get back in. I call Deputy Jen Cummins, who has two minutes. Members could arrive in the door and they will have two minutes.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I go back to the issue of recognising youth work as a profession. I know when I was on NYWAC about 100 years ago that matter was debated very frequently. I am somewhat surprised but maybe not surprised that that has not come to fruition. What needs to happen for that to happen?
I wish Mary Cunningham the very best in her retirement. She has been absolutely amazing for youth work organisations in this country for a very long time and we will miss her greatly.
Ms Mary Cunningham:
I thank the Deputy very much. In relation to its being a profession, the building blocks are there in relation to the work of NSETS. We are not saying that youth work is a protected title and that someone can only use the term "youth worker" if they have the relevant qualifications. I also refer to the point we made earlier on the terms and conditions of service. People are leaving youth work to go to other public bodies because the terms and conditions of service are so much better and youth work cannot complete.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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That is why I left youth work. It could not compete with other opportunities because it involved working evenings and I had a small family. I worked on the school completion programme with the ETB. It is a huge thing but it is very frustrating that 21 years later it is still no better. As has been referenced earlier, youth workers do not like protesting and do not like having to go on strike and things like that. Nor do school secretaries and I am not suggesting they do that now. However, at some stage a button has to be pressed and people have to say, "Enough".
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank all the witnesses.
Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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It is a case of "Show me your budget and I'll show you your priorities." We are talking about really small money in the scheme of a multibillion-euro budget. It is incredible and that needs to be heard loud and clear here today. On the staff piece, the witnesses have touched on the challenges with recruitment and retention. The vast majority of this work is led and delivered by volunteers. It seems to be a permanent challenge to recruit and retain volunteers to deliver services. Are there particular pieces there that the witnesses would like to highlight? I will follow their lead. I hear about needing certainty around Garda clearance and things like that. Are there other issues they would like to highlight?
Dr. Patrick J. Burke:
The vast majority of youth work in Ireland is still carried out by volunteers. That is not well known. I think it is in the region of 80:20 where 80% is not paid. We have to get over ourselves and understand that volunteering is not free. Sometimes it seems that way but it costs organisations on this side of the table to recruit volunteers but more importantly to support them and make sure they have the skills they require to deliver on child protection, Garda vetting, quality standards, running committees, youth participation and all that sort of thing. That requires investment and we do not get that level of investment. All the money in recent years has gone into targeted work and nothing really substantial into this hugely important work. Do not talk to me about value for money here. Not every county has a club development worker. What is that about? They could support 20 or 30 clubs in a county.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I have tried to get each member in and we have to finish by 3 o'clock. I call Deputy Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh who has two minutes.
Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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I ask the witnesses to speak about our youth with special needs and inclusion.
Ms Rachael Murphy:
There is a challenge and there is no point pretending there is not. Youth workers need to be upskilled. There is such diversity there in terms of young people with additional needs.
Volunteers and parents in communities are doing a huge amount of the heavy lifting in creating specific ASD clubs or clubs for deaf young people. In our youth work, we welcome all. We are inclusive of everybody. However, it can be a huge challenge to have buildings that are accessible to young people and to find people with the additional skills required to deal with these additional needs. We still want to engage those young people in youth work and youth work methodologies. That is an ongoing challenge for all organisations. It is something we are keen to pursue.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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I apologise for my absence. I had to do stuff on defamation in the Seanad. I am sorry if this issue has been raised already but I spotted it when I read the notes. Almost 58,000 young people aged 15 to 24 years are not in employment, education or training. What can be done for that cohort of people to get them back into education or into the workforce? What supports are needed?
I was also surprised to read that the average wage of a youth worker was €37,000 in 2008 and by 2024, it was only €39,800. In 2008, the average wage in Ireland was €36,000, so they were doing all right then. In 2025, the average wage is €44,000 so they are lagging behind by €5,000. I am disappointed to see that. Youth Work Ireland Meath is based in Navan. Ms Geraldine Hogarty and Mr. Peter Mulligan who work there are great, as is everyone else who works there. I have met representatives of SpunOut and the National Youth Council of Ireland. They do amazing work.
Those are my two pieces: I would like a comment on the wages and on what we can do with the 58,000 people who, the census showed, are not in employment, education or training.
Dr. Patrick J. Burke:
I will keep it very short. Youth workers need to be put on some kind of a scale that is situated specifically in the public sector. It needs to be linked in with national pay agreements. It is as simple and clear as that. It is the only hope we have of recruiting and retaining good-quality workers.
On unemployment, many of the organisations before this committee have dedicated programmes that work with young people to bring them into employment. We often have nowhere to go to get State funding. It is often funded by the corporate sector or philanthropy. We have tried, for instance, to engage with the Department of Social Protection and it is not always easy. We have this gap. These are often evaluated projects-----
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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It is about funding, funding and funding. That was the message that came across when I met the groups. Who is the representative of Foróige?
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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It is not in any of the notes, but I would be very much about insurance reform. Foróige is now turning down going to places because of little lines in their policies.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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That is hard for some businesses because they depend on the business of Foróige.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Foróige obviously promotes the well-being of youth. What can we do to help on the insurance side?
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Foróige cannot bring young people to activity centres.
Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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What are the underwriters telling Foróige? What is the broker saying?
Ms Rachael Murphy:
The broker is telling us that we cannot take on another entity's liability. We need insurance reform for those kinds of organisations because of course we want to go to those fun activity places. At the moment, if they are trying to push all their liability onto us, it is not a risk we can take. What we would like to see in the context of insurance reform is ensuring that those entities are able to be adequately insured and do not have to try to pass on the risk to us. We are not underwritten by the State but are reliant on our own underwriters. There are only ten companies in the market and we only got quotes from two. Our insurance is incredibly challenging.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I am next, but am going to forgo my speaking time because we are against the clock. There is now a voting scenario in the Dáil. I will give Senator Scahill one minute. We are against the clock.
Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I will be quick. Senator Tully spoke earlier about capital and the witnesses referred to ongoing capital projects. We have a community youth facility in Castlerea in Roscommon. Youth Work Ireland is the current tenant. We have a great working relationship. That is all going well. As a community group, we applied to the climate action fund and were able to retrofit and bring the facility up to scratch. We hit a problem, which would be the same as the witnesses hitting a problem in relation to capital. We got 100% funding but had to pay out the money to get it back. I have hit a brick wall. I am trying to access a credit union loan in order to pay for it. As a limited company, there are issues with getting a loan. There must be easier ways to support the witnesses' organisations. That is what I will take away from this whole discussion. What I want to know is if there are areas of the country where people are still struggling to access youth services.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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That is a good way to finish off the discussion. Would Ms Keane mind passing on that loneliness report at some stage?
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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If she could send it to the committee, that would be brilliant.
Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I am sorry, but times do not always work out. I had intended to give all the witnesses additional time at the end. There are two things against us. We are obliged to be finished by 3 p.m. and a vote has now been called. I sincerely thank the witnesses and apologise to them. We had a good discussion even though we did not get into a second round. I thank them for their time and testimony.