Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I commend the youth workers who put a great deal of time into working with young people and thank them for their work and the contribution that they have made to date and will continue to make in the future.

I came into politics directly as a result of being involved in a youth organisation and serving on its national executive when I was only 18 when all of the other members on the national executive were adults. I remember being in this House aged 18 or 19 looking for funding for youth organisations in order to retain staff. That was not today or yesterday. It was a significant learning curve from my point of view and it was one of the reasons I found that I was better involved in politics in trying to achieve change rather than being outside trying to effect change.

One of the first lessons I learned from my involvement in youth organisations was that there were four characters at every meeting in Ireland: Blaming Ben, Preaching Paddy, Peaceful Pete and Fearful Fred. Every time Senator Leyden stands up, I immediately think of Blaming Ben. It is amazing when one comes into this House every morning to look for those four characters in the House and assign the names and it is interesting how some mornings it changes. It shows, in the case of young people in youth organisations, that in the education system one size does not fit all.