Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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567. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth further to Parliamentary Question No. 461 of 8 October 2024, if he can provide clarity on whether, and how, his Department, as per Budget 2025, will support the expansion of initiatives to enable children and young people to participate in decision making within the framework of the Participation of Children and Young People in Decision-Making Action Plan 2023-2028; the funding that is being made available to this as per the Budget 2025 announcement and through which structures; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41630/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Further to my response to the Deputy’s previous question on this matter, I secured funding of €3.1m (current funding) in Budget 2025 to support my department’s remit for the participation of children and young people.

This funding will enable my department to implement, inter alia, the ambitious Participation of Children and Young People in Decision-making Action Plan 2024-2028. The implementation of this action plan will ensure that:

• The right of children and young people to participate in decisions that affect their lives is more widely recognised and implemented.
• Our local level (the Comhairle na nÓg local youth council network) and national (the National Youth Assembly of Ireland ,Daíl na nÓg and the National Executive of Comhairle) participation structures operate and develop to realise the right of all children and young people to have a say in important decisions that will impact their lives.
• The participation of seldom-heard and vulnerable children and young people in decision-making is strengthened by identifying and establishing mechanisms and pathways for their participation.
• Capacity building training to equip those working with and for children and young people to undertake meaningful consultations with children and young people is developed and rolled out.