Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to discuss this issue which I have discussed with her privately on several occasions. She understands my passion about improving youth services in County Kildare and the demographic challenges we face.

I thank the Minister for engaging with representatives of Kildare youth services in recent months. She met them in mid-November and also back in June when she was in Kildare town to open the Hive youth hub, a great facility for young people in the town. I hope these meetings and engagements, as well as the discussions I have had with the Minister, have helped to highlight for her the scale of the challenges facing Kildare in providing youth services and helped her to understand the unique position of my county.

Kildare has a growing population as well as an above average youth population. This is coupled with a low level of service provision across the spectrum from essential universal services to specialised services. The Minister witnessed the strong, positive and established inter-agency relationships that exist in the county's children and young peoples' services committee and the local community development committee. This allows us to maximise the impact of available resources and produce tangible results such as the Hive, which the Minister visited.

The group presented a proposal to the Minister setting out the resources required to begin to increase service levels for children, young people and families in Kildare. I wish to focus specifically on three areas: the need for a dedicated youth officer for Kildare, the need to increase the number of family resource centres, and the proposal to buy the Hive building. Kildare shares a youth officer with County Wicklow. The post is funded through the Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board, KWETB. Kildare's population is one of the fastest growing in the State. According to the 2016 census, the population increased by 5.6% compared with the national average of 3.7%. According to the 2011 census, 28.3% of the population in Kildare is aged 17 and under compared with the national average of 25%. I expect that trend to continue and to be reflected in the 2016 census results. Kildare is too big a county, with an above average youth population, not to have its own dedicated youth officer. Will the Minister outline the engagement to date between her Department and KWETB to address impediments to filling such a crucial post?

There are only two family resource centres in the whole county catering for more than 220,000 people. Counties with much lower populations have considerably more family resource centres. Kerry has 12, Donegal has nine and Mayo has seven, but the population in each of those counties is far smaller than that of Kildare. I know from engaging with our family resource centres the value of the work they do. We need more of them in our county.

There is a proposal to buy the Hive building in Kildare town from An Post. This is a cost-effective proposal which would greatly add to youth facilities, not just in the town but in the county as a whole. The Hive provides a youth café and meeting space, services which were not previously available. The plan was to pilot a youth hub for the entire county, and such a venture could operate out of the current space. We need to secure the building to secure and maintain the current provision of services and facilities and to expand them. The inter-agency approach is established in Kildare and a lot more can be done. The purchase of the building is a one-off cost the Department should consider in its budget for 2017.

See this speech in context