Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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408. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the capital funding allocated to the youth work sector in 2016 and 2017; the amount of funding that has been drawn down by beneficiaries to date in both 2016 and 2017, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33510/17]

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 communities throughout the country.

Budget 2017 provided an additional €5.5m in current funding to my Department to support the provision of these youth services. The total current funding for 2017 is €57.4m.

In recent years, capital funding has been made available to my Department to purchase equipment and to support small scale projects, including refurbishment, health and safety fit-outs and accessibility improvements in local voluntary youth services.

A capital allocation of up to €2.6m was made available to my Department in 2016 for capital projects in the voluntary youth services in 2016/2017.

* Grants amounting to just over €200,000 remain to be drawn down in 2017.

Budget 2017 made available a total of €2.6m to my Department to help meet the capital needs of youth services and projects across the country. To facilitate the effective allocation of this funding my Department has formed a working group including Youth Officers from Education and Training Boards from around the country to develop proposals for the disbursal of the 2017 capital funding allocation and I hope to be in a position to announce details of this in the coming months.