Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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44. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her Department will consider a pilot programme to fund the development and operation of State run one-stop-shop youth spaces in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Protection, with a focus on wrap-around supports for young people, such as mental and sexual health, employment, training, and so on. [38001/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department supports 21 youth information centres (YICs) nationally. These centres provide young people with a trusted source of information on rights, opportunities, health, wellbeing, welfare and other matters, and are a means by which they can find their way to more specialised help when they need it. In 2025, my Department allocated €1,512,163 in funding for YICs. One of the organisations in receipt of this funding is Spun Out, Ireland’s national youth information website, which provides youth information online including on such matters as mental and sexual health, employment and training. Spun Out also hosts an online youth information chat service. Spun Out receives additional grant funding from my department under the Youth Services Grant Scheme.

My department provides funding to the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) to support its national youth health programme. This programme seeks to build capacity within the youth work sector to support young people's health and wellbeing. €86,952 has been allocated to this programme by my Department in 2025.

My Department also operates the Targeted Youth Employability Support Initiative (TYESI) which provides funding for programmes to support young people who are not in education, training or employment and are not being reached by mainstream supports. TYESI provides community-based youth work support to improve soft skills and agency to support young people’s engagement in progression pathways including to education, training and employment. My Department allocated €1,133,884 in funding to eighteen TYESI services in 2025.