Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

In total, my Department provided funding to 264 Foróige clubs nationally through the local youth club grant scheme in 2020, the latest year for which figures have been collated. Approximately 1,200 grants were made that year. Data for 2021 will be collated in the near future. A total of 72 grants were made in the Cavan and Monaghan education and training board area in 2020. Of these, 16 were made to Foróige clubs, making it the largest group to receive a local youth club grant scheme in that area.

I secured €2.5 million for the scheme in 2022, which represented a 20% increase on 2021. As the Deputy knows, as part of budgets 2020 and 2021, in each year I have been able to secure an additional €5 million for the youth sector. That means that in 2022, including capital allocations, the overall annual budget for youth funding was €73 million.

The local youth club grant scheme funding supports volunteer-led local youth work activities at a local level. The grants are made available through the local education and training boards.

My Department does not collate information on the activities of individual youth clubs. These will vary according to local needs and engagements with young people. I have been advised that some of the services provided by Foróige local youth clubs include training and education programmes, including ones for potential early school leavers and disadvantaged minority groups, and school holiday programmes, which include activities, courses, workshops and outdoor pursuits.

The local youth club grant scheme has a maximum grant level of €3,000, while the average nationally is approximately €1,500. The scheme supports in the region of 1,400 clubs or groups nationally. In recent years, Cavan-Monaghan reported that 80 or so clubs were receiving grants. As the Deputy knows, we maintained youth funding during the Covid restrictions to support the amazing online work, in many situations, that local youth clubs undertook to support young people. I will continue, in this year's budget, to seek to increase the overall funding for the youth sector, because it does such valuable work.

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