Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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1896. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the funding streams which are available or will become available to develop and deliver programmes in County Meath and elsewhere to ensure that there is proper supports for children that are not in school or full-time education; and the funding which is or will be available for the procurement or leasing of a premises in County Meath to allow for engagement with children and young persons outside of the school premises. [28661/17]

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 involving approximately 1,400 youth work staff working in youth services and in communities. I am pleased to confirm that I have allocated an extra €5.5m in current funding to support the provision of youth services in 2017. This will bring the total youth funding by my Department to €57.4m, an increase of 10% over last year's allocation. The additional funding is being used for programmes that target disadvantaged young people and to assist national youth organisations in their work to support local voluntary youth services. In 2017, an amount of €138,788 was allocated for the targeted youth projects and services in County Meath.

In addition the Educational Welfare Service of Tusla has advised that there are two School Completion Programmes (SCP) in County Meath namely Navan SCP and Trim South Meath SCP. The SCP supports enable children and young people at attend, participate and be retained in school and to actively support those out of school to return to school. The SCP will where necessary provide interim short-term supports to out of school students while they await a return to school or other education provision.

My Department recognises that it is always best for young people to remain in mainstream education. The provision of school and/or alternative education opportunities for out of school students is a matter for the Department of Education and Skills in conjunction with Education and Training Boards (ETBs provide such supports through the Youthreach and Community Training Centres). SCP funding may be used to rent suitable community space for the provision of short-term interventions to support out of school students when and only if such supports cannot be best implemented on school premises.