Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat agus go raibh maith ag an Aire as bheith anseo chun éisteacht a thabhairt don méad atá le rá agam. It is very important that the Minister is here to listen and hopefully I can impress upon her to do whatever is necessary to avoid cuts to some of the projects listed. They are not all within my constituency but I will concentrate on the projects that I know best.

These projects in the main are in working class or disadvantaged areas, whichever title the Minister wants to use, but they tick all the boxes that always define areas of major need, where the drug problem has been at its height. In the past there was low educational attainment in these areas. Much has been done about that in recent years and the cycle has been broken but if we continue with the cuts in youth services the cycle might be created again. Many are areas of very violent crime but they are also areas of severe poverty. They are impoverished in many ways. Whereas in richer or more affluent areas in Dublin there might be a call on the community to fund or help part-fund some of the projects that is not an option in most of these areas. The groups with which I have worked are imaginative in their fund-raising. They have tried everything, they have examined every grant available not only in Ireland but around the world. They have appealed to philanthropists. They have considered alternate sources of funds. They have pared all of their overheads right down to the bone because this is not the first cut. It comes after a series of cuts.

In many cases they have pared back their services, wages, and administration costs. It is not as if they are not aware of the need to be prudent in this day and age. They have done that in buckets yet they were told before Christmas to expect a cut of maybe 3%, 4% or even 5%. The cuts are huge for some of the projects listed by the City of Dublin Youth Services Board because they have already pared down. I will not deal with two groups, Focus Ireland and Candle which are substantial, and there are major reasons for that. I have some problems with them because alternative funding is already in place to capture that. Maybe the Minister is considering those organisations. Groups such as The Base in Ballyfermot have been pared down. The size of the funding looks attractive but it has been cut by 14% which would not sound huge if we were in an era of plenty but a cut of €60,000 from the budget of an organisation dealing with the most disadvantaged children in Dublin 10 is huge. That means job losses, curtailment of services, closure on certain days. The same could be said of the Ballyfermot youth services. Deputy Conaghan, who is here, would know some of the groups I am listing and the effects of such a cut on the Ballyfermot Youth Services or The Base. It is suggested that €73,000 will come out of its budget which is substantial.

I know that the final decision does not necessarily lie with the Minister but she can sign off or refuse to sign off on what the City of Dublin Youth Services Board presents to her. I urge her not to sign off on cuts of that scale and to look again to ensure that services do not end up reducing their service or their hours, especially at this time for young people.

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue of support for youth services and I know the services to which he refers. I have been to The Base in Ballyfermot and I know the work of the Ballyfermot Youth Services and I want to support as much as I possibly can the work done by youth services in Dublin and throughout the country. I recognise its value and would like to be investing more in it if that was feasible.

In 2013 my Department will provide funding of €53.173 million to support the provision of youth services and programmes throughout the country, including in particular, as the Deputy rightly says, in disadvantaged communities. That funding supports national and local youth work. There are approximately 1,400 paid staff, 40,000 volunteers and 400,000 young people participating in youth services and activities. We need to give more exposure to the work and make sure that youth work is recognised for the continuum of services it gives to young people. It has a huge role to play which I will focus on during my EU presidency of the Youth Council to help young people participate in training and eventually employment as well. That aspect of youth work increasingly needs attention.

As in all areas of the public sector, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs has had to find savings as part of the comprehensive review of expenditure, CRE. We must play our part as part of the collective Government effort to reduce our unsustainable day-to-day deficit. That is the reality for my Department as well as others. The CRE, published in December 2011, set out clearly the savings required for my Department in each of the years, 2012 to 2014. I published that, along with the detail of what would happen to all of this funding over that three year period. That was known to everybody involved. When we published the review we had a seven page chapter outlining the savings we required from the youth work funding schemes and it came to close to 10%. The bodies who administer these grants on behalf of the Department were notified about this and would have been familiar with what was in the CRE for the three year period in question. In the course of the past few weeks and months I have met with representatives of the youth sector with a view to determining how best to minimise the impact of the reduction in the 2013 budget on youth services, given the challenging budgetary situation we face. The administering bodies have been asked to examine issues such as salary levels, conditions, administrative costs across projects and services, if these have not already been addressed.

As far as possible I want to protect the front line services that youth workers and services provide to very vulnerable young people. In order to try to maximise the use of the funding available for youth services and programmes I have given flexibility to the local bodies which administer the grants, normally the VECs, to propose the reconfiguration of the allocations provided, having regard to the knowledge available to these bodies about the needs of young people at local level. There is flexibility built in to the bodies which administer the schemes to examine each project and come back to me with recommendations. As the Deputy says it comes back to me in the end.

In that context last week the City of Dublin Youth Service Board, as the local grant administering body in the Dublin area, submitted a proposal to the Department requesting that percentage reductions, different from those outlined in the CRE, would be applied to projects in the Dublin area. Their rationale, as they said to me, was to minimise the disruption to services and they said they had examined each of the projects and made recommendations based on the examination of those projects. In their analysis the majority of projects would receive cuts of less than 10%, many would be cut for example by 2%. They paid particular attention to the smaller projects and wanted to ensure they would continue because they felt they were providing a valuable service. They also said that some of the larger projects would receive greater reductions, hence the projects the Deputy mentioned which are receiving larger funding. I appreciate that they have made huge efforts to manage within that funding. That is the recommendation that has come to me.

I am examining the proposals from the City of Dublin Youth Service Board. My Department officials met last Friday with the board and we are examining the proposals that have been submitted.

There is no cut at present for the local voluntary youth clubs. Some other funding has been made available for the support of youth work this year. I am examining the proposals and the approach of the board and I will make a decision shortly. I take on board the points made about the value of the services being provided.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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I hope I have impressed upon the Minister the need not to proceed with these developments. Even though they are large-scale organisations, a cut of 3% can be the difference between staying open one day and closing. The same applies to Bradóg in the north inner city, which faces a cost of 14%, and Sphere 17 in Darndale, which faces a cut of €122,000. For any organisation, that would be a huge cut and means fewer jobs and services. The cumulative effect in my constituency amounts to almost €500,000, not including the Focus Ireland cut. It is substantial in respect of youth services in one constituency. This is taking place on top of cuts to child benefit, maternity benefit, DEIS schools and special needs assistants and tax increases. In the past, money might have been found by appealing to parents to contribute an extra donation but they cannot do so now. Services have changed work practices to accommodate changes to funding but organisations cannot take any more cuts on the scale suggested.

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I will examine in detail the impact of the proposed changes in budget allocations and I will try to ensure we make the most equitable decision on changes in funding. We will make every effort to preserve jobs and opening hours. We will make a decision in the most equitable way possible.