Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming in. I thank him also for today's announcement of the capacity building grants which help a lot of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people around Ireland. It is noticeable that, with the exception of Senator Boyhan, all those in the Chamber so far are either women or gay men. I hope we will see a number of our other colleagues taking part in what is a really important debate around young people's participation in society and how we can help them to recover. Last November I made a speech about young people missing out on rites of passage and made reference to nightlife and how young people were missing out on building relationships. It grabbed a bit of attention. Not everyone in here agreed with me but it is actually really important to young people because they have made enormous sacrifices in their social and personal lives, as well as in their educational and professional careers and these things are very important. We must acknowledge the contribution young people have made and how they have volunteered in their communities, as wells as on the front line in retail and our health service. They are going to have to deal with much of the social and economic consequences not just of Covid but also of climate change, the rapid change of pace with technology and they must deal with the housing crisis and everything else as well.

I want to focus on what we can do. A number of colleagues have spoken of the importance of investing in youth services. When we pull back the cotton wool that has protected us through this Covid period there will be a lot of scars. Our youth services rely very heavily on volunteers and they will need the supports in place to be able to help those young people who may have lost family members or friends to Covid or who have found this period hard on their mental health. Those supports, therefore, must be in place. I know specific cases have been made to the Minister about Scouting Ireland and some of the other youth organisations and that must be addressed. Others have commented on that. Equally, with regard to educational support programmes, while some have adapted very well to going digital, there is a digital divide and others have not been able to do so. We will thus need to provide those supports to allow people to catch up. Senator Hoey and others have mentioned the importance of reform of SUSI and access to it. We will be debating the housing issue later on which, again, is critically important.

There are a few other specific issues I think are important. One is the case of driving tests and the fact that there is a 30-week waiting list. That impacts on young people in a big way because it drives up the costs of their insurance, and their ability to be able to access services is limited, particularly in rural Ireland. Apart from all that, I would like us to be imaginative. We should look at the idea of a free travel scheme. Let us give young people a break. Why not allow free public transport for young people over the course of the summer? The EU has looked at a pilot scheme for inter-railing and so on but let us look at public transport here in Ireland and maybe give a certain number of free passes; it is something that has been tried in Belgium. We must look at nightlife. We must let young people get out. Senator Warfield has made arguments around this. We must be radical about when our nightclubs and city nightlife can open back up again. We must give young people the opportunity to go out there and enjoy it and to have a break.

Senator Dolan used the word "resilience". Young people have been resilient and it is important to acknowledge that. I have spoken to some of the most amazing young people over the last year. I have been involved in youth organisations for a long time and when one looks at the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union, ISSU, which many of us have engaged with, or at what is coming out of the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, at the young social innovators, the young social entrepreneurs, the young carers, we have all these groups of young people who are doing things that are really imaginative and different. When we say no decisions without us, I do not necessarily want some task force on young people, and that is important, but we need to have young people at the decision-making table. Last week I told the Minister for Finance that the most innovative people coming out of Ireland in the fintech space have been the Collison brothers. Why not put them in charge of the forum on the future of banking?As for the cybersecurity attacks, somebody such as Shane Curran and his company, Evervault, could do far more than some of those who have been responsible for what has been happening recently. Alicia O'Sullivan has been speaking out recently around cyberbullying and her testimony has been powerful. We should have voices such as hers at the table. Bláithín Ennis can speak to sustainable and ethical design. Fionn Ferreira has been doing amazing work about taking microplastics out of water. Jack O'Connor, a student from Limerick who I know, teaches farmers in Malawi how to plant seeds in a more imaginative way. These young people are making enormous contributions and we need to have them at the table.

I strongly support changing the voting age to 16. We need to make that decision, go with it and move on. It is about more than simply giving young people the right to vote. It is about meaningful ways of participating in society. It is about strengthening the student councils and Comhairle na nÓg. I would introduce participatory budgeting at local authority level to allow young people a say in the budget. We tried to do that in Wexford.

I know the Minister is passionate. Everybody in the country knows the difficulties that young people have faced over the past number of years. We now must give them a break. Every single decision we make over the next few months, from the review of the national development plan to the budget and the recovery plan for coming out of Covid must be youth-proofed. We must put young people at the centre of those decisions.