Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Heydon. As he rightly identified, the perceptions of County Kildare may be different from the reality. That was certainly made aware to me by the representatives of his county who met with me here and also in the county. I am particularly grateful for that awareness having been raised.

The two key points the Deputy made concern the numbers of young people in the county but also the mixed socioeconomic backgrounds throughout the county as distinct from the more affluent perception of the county. If the mapping exercise I referred to in my initial remarks demonstrates evidence of need both with regard to the numbers of young people and perhaps that mixed socioeconomic demographic, we will have something to work with, specifically in terms of the Deputy's request for funding of a youth officer for the county. My Department has gone back to the people we spoke with and we are very open to continuing that discussion, particularly with regard to that post. I look forward to continuing that conversation.

That mapping exercise helps us to understand better the requirements for an additional family resource centre as well as capital funding. The Deputy's proposals that came to me indicated a number of other aspects to that which, in my conversations with his people, we went through in a detailed manner. I made some suggestions in terms of how to follow up all of those, but particularly the ones the Deputy identified here.

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