Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response and take on board everything he has said, but I must return to the programme, "The Big Picture - Young and Troubled", in which young people identified solutions and where they and their families needed help. Only a number of weeks ago in Galway the Youth Work Ireland counselling service applied for funding from the HSE to provide a service for 220 children, ranging in age from 16 to 21 years, but its request was turned down. It was only awarded €15,000. The service was to provide support for an entire county - the second biggest in Ireland - but seemingly it did not meet the needs threshold. The needs had been identified by teachers, schools and Tusla as being met by this very good and working early intervention group. I cannot understand how, with an extra allocation of funding, we are not reaching out to groups such as this which have a proven record and good statistics.

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