Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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413. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs his plans to increase funding for youth workers. [6113/16]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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My Department administers a range of funding schemes and programmes to support the provision of youth services by the voluntary youth sector, to young people throughout the country including those from disadvantaged communities. The funding schemes support national and local youth work provision to some 380,000 young people. The voluntary youth sector involves approximately 1,400 paid staff, including youth workers and 40,000 volunteers working in youth work services and communities throughout the country.

I am pleased to advise the Deputy that Budget 2016 provided an additional €1.1m in current youth funding to my Department bringing the total allocation for the youth services to €51m in 2016. This additional funding will be used for programmes that target disadvantaged young people and to assist national youth organisations in their work to support local voluntary youth services.

An additional €2.25m in capital funding, also provided in Budget 2016, will be used to support small scale projects, including refurbishment, health and safety fit-outs and accessibility improvements in local youth services.

In addition, a new €600,000 Youth Employability Initiative, funded under the Dormant Account Funding Scheme and launched in October 2015 will provide grants to youth services for innovative programmes that target young people who are not in education, employment or training to improve their employability skills.

These additional investments in the voluntary youth services in 2015 and 2016 have been widely welcomed by youth sector interests.