Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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765. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the amount of funding that has been allocated to youth services for 2017; the amount of funding that has been allocated to Foróige, the National Youth Development Organisation for 2017; and if she will compare it against the funding allocated in 2014, 2015 and 2016 to the sector and the organisation. [36864/16]

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 will bring the total youth funding in 2017 to €57.4m. 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 commenced the process with national organisations, including Foróige, 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.

The funding allocated by my Department in respect of the schemes indicated in the Deputy's question is set out in the following table.

In 2015, Foróige also received €55,000 additional end of year funding to assist towards the long term sustainability of the Mayo centre and NFTE Programme.