Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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132. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if youth workers can have a professional body identity similar to social care works who are regulated by CORU, in relation to their pay scales; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50736/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My Department provides grant funding to support a range of youth services which are delivered by voluntary youth organisations and carried out by both paid youth workers and volunteers.

My Department has no role in the setting of pay scales or other matters that belong properly to the individual employer. The youth workers involved are employed directly by the organisation in receipt of funding.

CORU does not come under my own remit. CORU is Ireland’s multi-professional health and social care regulator. Its role involves the statutory registration of health and social care professionals as set out in the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005. Its role includes setting of standards, maintaining registers and carrying out fitness to practice hearings with respect to the competence of a registrant.

It is open to any sector to establish a professional body in the sense of an organisation that seeks to further the interests of a particular profession.