Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

I thank the Acting Chairman for the opportunity to address the House on this very important matter.

In the discussion on education that followed the budget, one area was not addressed when cutbacks were announced, namely, the youth affairs budget. There is a broad consensus across this House that the work in youth services done by the many voluntary organisations throughout this country is money well spent. Every year a very small sum of money in the budget is directed towards these organisations yet they still provide extraordinary opportunities for young people to participate in society. This is particularly the case for young people who fall out of the education system, those who do not complete their leaving certificate. Many of these projects are an essential means of their remaining within the informal education sector, as the Minister of State, Deputy Haughey, is well aware. There is cross-party consensus about the need to build capacity within this informal education sector which has been built up over recent years.

With a great sense of alarm and concern, I must inform the House of the very savage cutbacks that have taken root in the Department of Education and Science. The budget Estimate of €43.7 million for the youth affairs area is proposed to be cut back to €39.4 million in 2009. What we see as a result of the cutbacks in the Department is, effectively, a cut in the order of 10%. This will cause havoc and will make an already difficult situation much worse. These cutbacks will affect very many organisations throughout the country.

A complication is that the youth affairs section of the Department appears to have been shunted from Marlborough Street across to the Minister of State for Children and Youth Affairs. As a result of this shunting operation, the budget has fallen between two stools. A budget that was ring-fenced within the Department of Education and Science now falls between two Departments and is effectively lost. Nobody is standing up for this sector. The Minister of State, Deputy Haughey, will be aware of this more than anybody else because he knows from his own constituency, as I do from mine, the importance of many of these projects. I refer to the 180 special projects for youth affairs around the country. These 180 organisations help directly the most vulnerable children in our communities and they will suffer a 10% cut in their main line budget next year.

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