Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady. I am speaking about youth cafés and the way the service is delivered in Galway, in particular, but also right across the country. There are nearly ten youth cafés in Galway and they provide a very useful service in this recessionary time. Never has there been more of a need to provide drop-in facilities for young people such as youth cafés. They are drop-in facilities, not just youth clubs.

Youth cafés have been tremendously popular. They work very well in this and other countries. They are extremely important in Galway in particular. The key point I want to raise with the Minister of State is that youth cafés are put together on a shoestring, very much on an ad hoc basis and there is an urgent need to regularise the manner in which they are dealt with and protected. One of the key difficulties is the various funding methodologies. The latest report features the youth party toolkit as set out by the Department of Health and Children. It shows that up to €10,000 would be provided for existing youth cafés and €50,000 to €100,000 for new youth cafés up to September 2012.

The difficulty lies with the fact that most of the money being spent - currently and in future - goes largely on providing facilities. There are still very high rents in this country and many of the existing youth cafés are in high-rent buildings. Given the present recessionary period, obviously much more property is being made available. The key message for the Minister of State, therefore, is to ensure the facility is prioritised as opposed to the building. I do not want to see any spread of the situation pertaining in one or two youth cafés, where a reasonably expensive building is only open for one or two hours a week, because there is no one to staff it or there are no proper back-up facilities in terms of youth organisations being able to provide them. There has to be a slightly new focus, therefore, in relation to youth cafés, ensuring that buildings are open for the maximum length of time and properly manned. This is where the investment needs to be targeted.

There is a case for potentially rationalising existing services, and I know talks are going on between different youth and community bodies in Galway, with a view to providing a facility that might work for a number of different organisations. Imaginative methodologies must be applied to try to ensure the different Departments which are supplying funding for the youth cafés, and the efforts of local authorities, communities etc., are very much tied together. We need to involve organisations such as Youth Work Ireland and Foróige heavily in terms of every youth café. I do not believe there is a case for closing youth cafés in recessionary times because they are needed more than ever to ensure proper facilities are provided for young people. Many other facilities, unfortunately, are closing.

I want to stress the importance of these facilities for younger people. We must adopt an all-party approach. There is major support among all political parties for the provision of these facilities. We need to think outside the box in these financially difficult times to provide the best possible people-focused service.

Áine Brady (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I am taking this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State with responsibility for children and youth affairs, Deputy Barry Andrews.

As the Senator will be aware, on 12 April the Minister of State announced details of a dedicated youth café funding scheme of €1.5 million from the dormant accounts fund. This is the first dedicated youth café funding scheme in Ireland. The scheme is concerned with the structured promotion and development of new and existing youth cafés around the country. It was launched with two associated publications, Youth Cafés in Ireland: A Best Practice Guide and Youth Café Toolkit: How to Set Up and Run a Youth Café in Ireland.

As the funding scheme is once-off in nature, there is an inevitable focus on capital outlay and initial set-up costs. However, the criteria set out in the official guidelines for the scheme also focus on the broader issues of long-term sustainability and service planning, to which the Senator referred. The associated publications mentioned examine, discuss and establish a policy context for a youth café model in Ireland and deal with the issues being raised by the Senator in some detail. Applications must demonstrate that the proposed youth café would provide a safe and high quality space for young people, based on the guidance set out in the youth café toolkit. The space must have a clear purpose and applications must demonstrate that maximum usage of the facility will be a priority.

The youth café model envisaged in the current funding scheme is a multi-agency one; therefore, applications for strand 2 funding must be from consortiums which may comprise statutory, community or voluntary stakeholders. The scheme is not designed to provide for ongoing staffing costs but instead encourages realignment of existing services for young people to help achieve a more focused delivery of such services. Priority will be given to applications from consortiums which demonstrate leverage of funding from other resources for finance, staffing or site provision. This places an emphasis on sustainable and tangible service delivery.

Funding is available for various project types. Strand 1 is concerned with improving existing youth cafés through small-scale refurbishments. The maximum amount that can be awarded by each city or county development board, CDB, to applicants is €10,000. Strand 2 is aimed at new youth cafés, for which the maximum amount that can be awarded by each CDB to applicants is €100,000, which encompasses up to €10,000 for start-up costs.

The six general assessment criteria against which applications will be assessed, as included in the guidelines, and on which all funding applications will be appraised are as follows: evidence of need, which requires evidence of a demonstrable need for a youth café in the area, proof of engagement with young people and details of how funding would be spent; evidence of additionality, which requires applicants to show how the proposed facility would augment and interact with existing youth facilities in their areas, improve the co-ordination of youth services and provide a focal point for youth services in their areas; consistency with Government programmes, which requires applicants to demonstrate an understanding of the concepts and definition of youth cafés, as identified in the documents published by the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs; capacity of the group or organisation, which requires evidence that all operational aspects have been adequately considered and the consortium members have experience of operating or managing youth-based facilities - details of service planning and evidence of the particular skills and knowledge base of the consortium are also required; consideration of sustainability, which requires a clear demonstration of how the funding, if awarded, would yield significant results in the form of a viable and sustainable facility - details of plans to ensure maximum usage of the facility in the medium term and evidence of a plan to meet day-to-day running costs once the facility has been developed and opened are also required; and strength of proposal, under which it is determined whether a proposal meets the general aspirations of the dormant accounts fund initiative and addresses the core issues for development of youth cafés, as outlined in the associated documents.

The youth café funding scheme is the first such dedicated scheme in Ireland. It is concerned with promoting the structured development of new and existing youth cafés around the country by giving support to local organisations which are providing youth services. The criteria for the scheme place a clear focus on both long-term sustainability and service planning. It will be a highly competitive process and the Minister of State is satisfied that only those proposals which demonstrate clear and sustainable improvements in the services available to young people in their catchment areas will be successful under the programme.