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

I thank the Minister for her detailed response, her overall interest in the issue and, in particular, its impact in south Kildare.

As a county, Kildare is not fully understood. Its scale, the number of people who live in it, including the number of children and young people, the growth rate and the level of need our county is experiencing is sometimes underestimated. County Kildare faces particular challenges. Historically, we have very low levels of those services across the spectrums I mentioned earlier. Traditional definitions and interpretations of deprivation and the manner in which those apply in resource allocation do not appropriately reflect and respond to the complex needs of our county. In addition, our county's geography poses a challenge for service provision due to the urban and rural mix and its sheer scale.

However, the biggest challenge we have faced in Kildare is the perception of affluence that does not mirror reality in every corner of the county. I ask that the Department would take that on board and help us to expand our family resource provision, purchase the Hive building and get our dedicated youth officer.

On the specific area of youth services, the Minister and the Department must recognise and understand the demographics of our very young population and our historically low service levels and realise that in playing catch-up, we need to do more than just provide for a small increase, as the rest of the county gets a small increase, because the recession hit us hardest due to our levels being low before the recession. When the cuts came, they cut to the bone in Kildare South and there are statistics that point to that.

I look forward to the review in 2017 and to working with the Minister further with a view to getting improved resources into youth services provision in Kildare, south Kildare in particular.

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