Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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526. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if funding will be restored to local youth groups to 2008 levels in order to prevent the return of the stigmatisation that was experienced in the past (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4369/19]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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My Department was first established in 2011. As the Deputy is aware my Department, along with all government departments, was required to deliver substantial savings on all funding programmes in line with the Comprehensive Review of Expenditure 2012-2014. However, my Department sought to ensure front line youth services, particularly those for the most vulnerable young people, were protected as far as possible from the impact of the reduction in funding.

In recent years funding for the provision of youth services has been increased on an annual basis.

The overall budget for the youth sector in 2018 is € 58.9m in current expenditure, an increase of €7m in the youth funding provided in 2016.

Budget 2019 has provided a further increase of €1.5m in youth funding.

My Department has commenced a process to identify service development needs for 2019 and to finalise the 2019 youth funding allocations. The primary purpose of this process is to ensure that youth services are sufficiently resourced to meet the needs of young people and particularly those who are at risk of drugs or alcohol misuse, early school leaving, homelessness or who are living in disadvantaged communities.

In this regard, officials within my Department are currently processing funding renewal applications on behalf of both national youth organisations and youth projects throughout the country. Every effort will be made to complete this process as soon as possible and all youth organisations and youth services will be notified of their allocation at the earliest possible date.

I understand that in 2011 that Ballymun Regional Youth Service and Poppintree Youth received a combined total of €539,104 in youth funding from my Department. In 2018 these services received youth funding with a combined total of €1,442,794.