Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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605. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will provide a breakdown of the €5.5million increase in youth funding allocated in the budget. [31570/16]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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My Department administers a range of funding schemes and programmes to support the provision of youth services 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 and involve approximately 1,400 youth work staff in 477 projects and 40,000 volunteers working in youth work services and communities throughout the country.

As the Deputy is aware, Budget 2017 has provided an additional €5.5m in current funding to my Department to support the provision of youth services. 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. Following the Budget 2017 announcement, my Department will soon commence a process with national organisations and local services to identify service development needs for 2017 and to agree the 2017 allocations. Every effort will be made to complete this process as soon as possible.