I am pleased to welcome: Ms Kathryn Walsh, director of policy and advocacy at the National Youth Council of Ireland ; Ms Sophie Lynam, youth advocate at YMCA Ireland; Mr. Thomas Moloney, area manager at Cork Foróige; Mr. Michael McLoughlin, head of advocacy and communications at Youth Work Ireland; and Mr. Sean Sheehan, CEO of Scouting Ireland.

Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

I remind members of the committee that they will be afforded a six-minute speaking slot for questions and answers with a second chance to contribute at the end if they so wish. I also highlight to members that we do not have a hard finish time but that will be dictated by the number of members present. The witnesses will already have seen that today is very busy in the Dáil Chamber so when the bells ring we have to go and that will disrupt the meeting. I apologise for that, but it is known as democracy. If there is a vote in the Chamber we have to go.

I invite Ms Walsh to make her opening statement.

I thank the Chair and members of the committee for the invitation to speak today and contribute to the discussion on the national development plan and the importance of infrastructure delivery for young people. The National Youth Council of Ireland is the representative body for voluntary youth organisations in Ireland. It functions to represent the interests of young people and youth organisations. Our role as the national representative youth work organisation is recognised in legislation.

I am director of policy and advocacy in NYCI. I am delighted to be joined today by representatives from NYCI member organisations who each bring diverse experiences and insight into infrastructural needs for young people and how investment priorities can better reflect the needs of Ireland’s youth population. Each of my colleagues is well placed to discuss the lived experiences and realities of the needs of young people and youth services in respect of infrastructure. The Chair mentioned Ms Lynam, Mr. McLoughlin, Mr. Moloney and Mr. Sheehan.

As the representative body for youth work organisations working with young people across Ireland, we welcome the stated ambitions of the NDP and its focus on delivering critical infrastructure to support housing, growth and communities. Currently, youth services deliver high-quality youth work and non-formal developmental opportunities to approximately 450,000 young people aged ten to 24 across Ireland, with 2,000 youth workers and 40,000 volunteers supporting young people in their youth services and youth clubs nationally. However, our core message is that while the plan is ambitious in building where people will live, it does not yet adequately address how young people will live, how they will connect and how they will thrive within those communities. More young people could access youth work should the infrastructure be in place.

The NDP rightly recognises the needs of children and young people in areas such as education, but when it comes to dedicated infrastructure for youth spaces, services and facilities the level of investment is extremely limited. Of the €7.55 billion allocated to the Department of Education and Youth, just 0.26% is assigned to youth capital. That is primarily to support existing programmes, such as the local youth club grant scheme and UBU Your Place Your Space. This is important funding, but it is not sufficient to deliver the scale of youth infrastructure required to meet current or future need. In the context of the billions in the investment programme it represents a significant gap. Without comprehensive investment in youth infrastructure, we risk creating communities where young people have nowhere to go, limited access to supports and fewer opportunities to engage positively in their local areas.

Youth work services are proven to support mental health, social cohesion and life outcomes, yet they are not currently embedded as a core component of infrastructure planning within the NDP. This is despite the fact that youth work and youth work spaces often provide vital access points for other State agencies to engage with young people who are less heard or less likely to engage through formal systems. The committee’s focus on infrastructure delivery is a critical opportunity. There is a clear and practical step that can be taken. That is to recognise youth work infrastructure as essential and to ensure that it is planned, funded and delivered alongside housing and other capital investment. That includes increasing the scale of capital investment beyond the current €4 million annually, supporting the development of youth hubs and shared community spaces, and ensuring that new and growing communities are designed with young people in mind from the outset.

I draw the committee’s attention to the essay by the chair of the online health task force, "Rooted in Reality: Spaces and Places", in the interim report of the task force, which I have linked in our briefing material. In this essay, Jillian van Turnhout sets out a pathway and recommendations to invest in offline spaces to thrive and places to belong for Ireland's children and young people, including the establishment of a dedicated cross-departmental fund for youth spaces and facilities. Indeed, the committee may wish to invite former Senator Jillian van Turnhout before the committee to discuss this.

In September 2024, one of the actions the national youth work strategy, opportunities for youth, committed to was to develop and implement a policy for youth spaces and facilities at a local level. As yet, we have not seen this policy, nor has there been any indication of progress on it. Currently, there is a lack of co-ordination and shared ownership across Departments, resulting in no one Department leading on meaningful, transformative investment in youth infrastructure. Yes, we have got a commitment for annual funding for youth affairs in the Department of Education and Youth under the NDP sectoral plan until 2030, and against a backdrop of underfunding and ad hoc allocations in recent times, it is welcome relief.

However, let us not be naïve; €4 million annually will not be transformative. We welcome, from initial consultations with the Department, the recognition that a one-year €4 million allocation is not workable for infrastructure delivery. As we know, capital projects require multi-annual timelines. A cumulative funding approach would be significantly more beneficial. However, on the NDP allocation for youth affairs the Minister, Deputy Naughton, said,“This increased capital funding will support essential upgrades to youth facilities, equipment and digital infrastructure, helping to ensure that services are delivered in safe, modern and accessible environments for young people.” This NDP allocation will help with upgrades, but how will it create greater infrastructure for young people? If it is not the responsibility of the Department of Education and Youth, then whose responsibility is it?

However, it is not the only actor with the power to provide and support infrastructure in communities. Opportunities for youth noted that local authorities’ local economic and community plans are the primary mechanism to promote community and local development, including in respect of infrastructure and community facilities. I know my colleagues here can discuss how funds can be leveraged and how the proactivity of youth services has supported youth infrastructure with other actors, such as local authorities, the OPW, private institutions, the Community Centres Investment Fund, housing bodies and LEADER companies. There is a role for the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht. We have seen the multimillion investment in County Galway in the education and youth facility. There is also a role for the Department of Children, Disability and Equality. We saw investment in recreational spaces for teenagers. Indeed, NYCI has written to the Minister, Deputy Calleary, Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, and the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, on the issue of youth places and spaces in recent times. We await their responses on this.

We have young Ireland and the child poverty and well-being programme office. What we are not seeing is the person, the Department or the Minister making youth infrastructure an issue for them. We know that under the Irish Presidency, there will be a Council conclusion on promoting youth spaces for young people in Europe. If we are looking for member states to develop a cross-governmental strategic approach to the mapping, support and future development of youth spaces, we must also do it here. Many youth organisations operate in ageing buildings that require substantial upgrades to meet current safety and accessibility standards. We recognise that €4 million capital may go some way to supporting those organisations, where additional strains may have been put on operational budgets as resources have been diverted to address urgent maintenance issues rather than being invested in programme delivery and development.

Population growth, the development of new communities and evolving youth needs require the establishment of new youth services, new fit-for-purpose facilities and co-located youth services. Planning and investment in community infrastructure should be responsive to the needs of young people and youth work services with facilities that are visible, accessible and capable of supporting a wide range of programmes and outreach activity. We know the Department of Education and Youth is progressing a national youth services mapping project to strengthen the evidence base for planning, funding and supporting youth services across the country. The proposed internal data dashboard aims to enhance the Department’s capacity to monitor participation, identify service gaps and ensure resources are aligned with population needs and levels of disadvantage. This must be made more widely available, support cross-governmental planning and should be integral to the NDP. We ask the committee to follow up on the progress of this and how the mapping is being operationalised.

Without comprehensive dedicated capital funding underpinned by cross-governmental commitment to supporting young people and youth infrastructure, the State will be unable to ensure all facilities for youth work are fit for purpose, or to extend the reach of youth work to areas of unmet or emerging need. In that context, we look forward to engaging with the committee on how the NDP can better reflect the needs of Ireland’s young people, not as an afterthought, but as a central part of delivering sustainable, inclusive communities to 2035 and beyond.

I thank Ms Walsh. Other members of the group are free to participate in some of the responses.

Members have indicated they wish to contribute in the following sequence: Senator Stephenson and Deputies McCormack, Cronin and Neville. Senator Stephenson has six minutes.

We are delighted to have this focus. It is really important for us. It can be one of those things that often gets missed or not seen as a priority. I know Ms Lynam is the youth rep as it were. It might be interesting to hear a bit from her perspective. We talk about youth services and it can become a bit like jargon and lingo. What does that look like for Ms Lynam in her community where she is from and the people she has engaged with through youth programming? Could she explain a little bit about the benefits of that from her experience as well?

I believe that a good youth service is one that can have many services in one area. That way young people can access what they need without having to feel like they are going to a certain area for one thing and another area for another thing. It improves the accessibility of the whole thing. I can say confidently that by investing in these youth services, we are investing in the community as a whole. Young people, especially in rural areas, are currently being deprived of opportunities because there is not the funding to support them. The youth hubs are more than just a building. It is more than just the jargon that the Senator mentioned, although it has turned into that. It is a place where young people can grow and learn such fundamental skills. The youth communities I am in have benefited me greatly and without them, I would not have the skills I have today. I can say that for so many young people across all the different organisations.

That is really helpful. That idea of having a one-stop shop where someone can access all the different services is really important, particularly when young people might not be able to drive and getting lift to different places would actually be a bit of a hindrance for people living in rural areas. Could Ms Lynam or anyone else talk about the online aspect and how crucial it is to get back outside? We have wider discussions happening on social media bans and whether they are good or not. Without talking about that, and rather from the general youth work angle, could the witnesses talk about how crucial that is for young people's development?

The Internet is, of course, a very scary place at the moment, especially with the rise of AI and deepfakes. These youth spaces, as third spaces, give young people a place to go to get away from the Internet. These offline spaces are more crucial than the ones online. If young people see something online they may not agree with or that makes them upset, they can go to their youth workers in person and meet them and meet other young people that might have the same interests as them or maybe some things they would not have otherwise, if it were not for these offline spaces. In my local area, I have also attended the youth services there and they have been way more beneficial to me than any online space and have been safer than any online space I have ever been on.

I thank Ms Lynam. What was the impact of the austerity years on youth services? How are we catching up? That links to how crucial the advocacy the witnesses are doing is in terms of increased budget for this area of work. It would be interesting to hear the perspective of the witnesses on what underfunding did to the youth services sector. This is for Ms Lynam or anyone who wants to answer it so there is no pressure. Ms Lynam may be a bit young to know about the austerity years so there is no pressure on her to answer that. It would be interesting to hear what that austerity did for the generation who did not receive the necessary youth services across the board and how much we have to catch up in that space.

There is a link between the two points the Senator made about the austerity and the offline spaces. There is a network, less widely known about, of youth information centres in Ireland. The YMCA is represented here, and they are very big participants in it alongside Foróige and others. During the austerity times going back a number of years to where the whole online safety debate was then and, in fairness others can correct me and it might have been different, we were left with the understanding that it is not really necessary anymore to talk to people face to face and to sit down with them to help them navigate the information world. It is better just done on the Internet is what was said at the time. Strangely, we have come full circle from that where it is the opposite and we are told we really need these spaces. The jargon now is offline spaces; youth clubs, youth centres, drop-in centres, whatever we want to call them. It is interesting when we follow some policy debates and discussions it can tend to go full circle.

The youth information centres and the support they offer remain but they were heavily hit during austerity and there is still no clear policy direction. We as an organisation in partnership with others like YMCA and others here have been really looking for that and every budget period we put in the same ask that at least there is some leadership again at national level and that it is supported. They would operate in those youth centres and community centres because they are natural spaces. There is a big one planned with Foróige in Carlow at the moment. We are looking forward to that.

There is a link between those two questions. In some respects we are happy that officials and politicians now accept that online is not going to cut it. That is a good thing. However, redressing the cuts in funding that were made, particularly on youth information in those years, is something we still need to do.

In relation to austerity, youth and community services were decimated at that time and we have never caught up regarding funding and supports. We were speaking earlier about the volunteerism in communities at that time. There were the austerity cuts and then the Covid pandemic, which had another detrimental effect locally on youth and community work services. We saw a lot of buildings during the austerity era close. We saw professionally paid youth workers moving to part time. We saw volunteers falling away in the services. The detrimental effect that had all over the country has been huge.

We are not back to the same funding we were receiving at that time. Even if we were to get back there, we are so much further down the line in the offerings we give to young people and communities that we need a lot more money to go towards infrastructure. Foróige looks at infrastructure not just as the hard buildings we work out of; we look at infrastructure as the digital side, investing in digital, investing in humans and investing in the youth services that are there. All of that has to be considered when we are looking at the infrastructure within the youth services sector.

Within Foróige, we also look at the digital side of youth work and through digital youth work we connect the islands and different young people across the country. We have done it on a European level as well. It has its positive sides but we can never get past the hard and fast working in a building, face to face with young people. That support is invaluable.

I thank the witnesses.

I thank everyone for coming in today and for their opening statements. I also thank Ms Lynam for her very articulate answer to Senator Stephenson's questions.

Services for our youth are very important. It is very important as part of the fabric of our society to have them in place and look after them. We need to bring up our youngsters in a proper manner so that they learn from others as they go along. They cannot do that on the Internet or on their phone; they need to be face to face. We need to put those places, be they building, projects, courses or classes, in place for the youth to be able to learn from them.

Media outlets will talk to us about everything that is bad about the youth of today. They will talk about the antisocial behaviour and bullying and they will also talk about drinking, drugs and all the rest that goes along with it. However, at the end of the day, if we sit down, like I do, with students from different schools in Tullamore, whether that is Sacred Heart Secondary School, Coláiste Choilm, Tullamore College, Killina school, Scoil Chiaráin Naofa or even St. Brendan's Community School in Birr or the schools in Edenderry, we will find it is a completely different story. Those kids are no different that when I was that age. They want to help people in their society. They want to get out there and be part of society. They want to be involved in clubs and organisations. They want to better their society. We do not get the media. The media should sit down sometimes, take a look at themselves and start to promote the good side of the youth of today and how they get on.

There are a lot of hurdles. Senator Stephenson talked about some of them with regard to the Internet, social media and the bad things that are attached to that. We have talked in this House over the past number of months about social media and the effects it has on young people and, now that we have some of them here in the Houses of the Oireachtas, I would like to ask about that at first hand from their perspective.

We are talking about the ban in Australia and we are told that most kids - around 60% - can navigate around the ban, but it is also said that other factors have not been taken into consideration. It is making a big difference in that people are engaging more with each other and getting involved with local clubs and organisations more. They are not suffering mental health issues to the same extent as they were previously, so maybe it is a good thing. What do the witnesses think of a ban on social media for under-16s?

Of course, I cannot speak fully for every young person in the country but there are positives and negatives to look at when it comes to this. The Internet can be such a scary place but we also have to work with it. We cannot just decide to throw it away. I do not remember a time before the Internet. I have grown up with it, so it is what I know. If anyone wants to jump in and say what they think about the online-offline space they are welcome to.

I will touch on the Internet and social media quickly. We are of the opinion that to address online safety we have to make sure safe offline spaces are available. That is where youth work and youth services come in. It goes back to the idea of the trusted adult and that if you see something harmful online, you can go somewhere and be able to say without shame or stigma that you saw something. The Deputy mentioned some people saying that the ban has made a big difference in Australia and that young people are engaging more. Young people will engage if they have the places, spaces and opportunities to do so and youth work does that. It has been around the houses at various committees here, where we have presented and brought young people in. The Children's Rights Alliance, which we are members of, has come forward to say that we do not support a ban. That is why I also pointed to the online health task force report that was put together about the role of those safe offline spaces. The responsibility to navigate those spaces has to be taken away from young people and their parents or guardians. That is what regulation is for. Noeline Blackwell always uses the analogy of cars-----

I am really sorry to interrupt but I have a couple of more questions. Carry on.

A person would not get into a car that is not regulated. It has to go through those safety checks. Young people use online spaces and it is the duty of legislators, regulators and us to make sure the spaces are safe. We also have to make sure that the offline spaces are there so they can navigate that.

I will be shot if I do not mention two schools in Banagher and Ferbane that I also engage with - a whistle-stop tour of Offaly there. An awful lot of youth engagement happens in schools and it is a really important part of it. They are well-funded and there are very good programmes in schools, but the stuff outside school where people can mix with others is very important as well, and it is a huge part of integration. I see this in clubs and organisations. For instance, at St. Mary's Youth and Community Centre in Tullamore I see people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds coming there and mixing. It is a huge place and a fantastic place for people to integrate and get to know people. Their families then come in as part of the events that happen, whether it is a musical, a singing competition or a quiz. Their families are coming in and mixing, which is great. From that particular youth centre, they go on to the GAA centre to play football, hurling, camogie and ladies' football, and are heading on then to the rugby club to do the same thing.

This question is for Youth Work Ireland. How much money does the organisation need and what are the three main projects the money would be spent on?

How much money do we need?

I will make two points. I mentioned a facility in Carlow that our members are delivering at the moment. It is a €4.5 million state-of-the-art community development facility. The youth service will be the anchor tenant but there will be loads of other stuff there too. As Ms Walsh said, the total budget the Department of Education and Youth has for capital, for everyone, is €4 million, so it would not even deliver that one project. We want youth affairs to come to the table to make an offer but there are also other funders out there. What youth services do is leverage for funding. In Tullamore and Edenderry, we have some very good models working with the Respond housing association. On the housing side we work with people. We work with the community funds and with philanthropy. A big centre we have in Limerick is funded by a very well-known philanthropist down there. The council provides the site and the youth service provides the youth work within it. There are various ways of doing it. There is a figure in the budget of €15 million, I think, but we are not waiting around for other people. The money is there from other places but-----

I know lots of grants are coming from different Departments as well.

What we want to see is some sort of streamlined policy to cover the whole thing. That is what we are asking for today.

I thank the witnesses for coming in today and I apologise for having to go to vote. I am looking at the screen hoping another vote will not be called. I am interested in this internal data dashboard that was mentioned. As TDs, we often get invitations to youth nights and youth culture nights and it is just brilliant. I go to these events and I leave them walking on cloud nine, knowing that the kids are all right and everything is grand. We have a great centre in Leixlip and we are getting our first family resource centre in north Kildare very soon. We have had no family resource centre in north Kildare because it is such a wealthy constituency. However, there is lots of hidden deprivation in north Kildare at the same time. I know the youth workers there. They are brilliant and do great work. I will certainly follow up on this internal data dashboard. I go to these youth nights and meet these young people and they are brilliant, but there are so many kids whose parents are not bringing them to youth clubs because they may have addiction problems or something like that.

The witnesses are right that we are not back to spending the right amount of money on young people yet. The best youth workers, and I know a few of them, are those who are out kicking a ball with young lads. In Leixlip, we have Mars who is out on the green in the middle of the estate to meet the kids. These are the youth workers we really need to reach the kids whose parents are not signposting them to youth services. What should the committee do? It was said that the committee should follow up on the progress and mapping and all of that.

One of the actions being done under opportunities for youth is mapping. There are two phases to it. The first is-----

Is that Pobal?

No, it is a dashboard that is bringing all the statistics in. It is using deprivation but there are two parts to it. The public-facing dashboard will be a map of where clubs and youth services are, based on the data the Department has. The second part is the internal data dashboard. That will be very comprehensive because it will show where the black holes are and where there is no youth work at all, whether it be universal youth work or targeted. This will be really important for planning for young people.

It is interesting that the Deputy spoke about youth night, which is fantastic. It happened last year and it will be held again this year. It is to create awareness about youth work. One thing everyone here will tell the committee is that we are blue in the face talking about what youth work is, its importance and what it does. Unless we can hammer that home, it is very hard to follow through to get the investment. However, youth night is a double-edged sword because we are creating awareness but then we have a demand for these services that the services cannot reach and young people have to be turned away. That is really problematic. People say youth night is a great service. Some of the other witnesses might want to talk about how that is affected. However, when people ask if they can come, we have to tell them that we cannot take them on because we have a massive waiting list. We cannot even meet the needs of the people we have in the service because those overhead costs are draining, cutting and taking away from programmes. Recruitment and retention are also issues. There is so much that is beyond even this committee that is problematic. Mr. Sheehan might want to come in here.

It is important that we distinguish between youth services, and the funding for youth work and support, and some of what we are here today to talk about, which is funding-----

Yes, about spaces.

-----of physical infrastructure and facilities and the €4 million per year that is available. That €4 million per year would fund 2 km of greenway. We have to look at this. We did 15 km of greenway last year and we are putting €4 million into physical infrastructure. It is not even about those existing communities where we have a scout den, a youth hall or a community hall that is used and leveraged by the community. To the Deputy's point, so many communities do not have that. We have to look at this holistically.

We have to look at it with a whole-of-government perspective and think about how we are supporting the new communities that are emerging in a new Ireland, as well as the existing communities, some of which we have not done right by. As well as supporting youth work and youth services there is a capital investment is required, and I would like to think none of us would agree that €4 million a year is sufficient in respect of that.

If he does not mind, I was smiling away as Mr. Sheehan was talking in relation to some of the youth work that happens in kicking a ball and that engagement of the youth. The TD earlier, whose name I forget, was talking about antisocial behaviour. Youths gathering in a space is not antisocial behaviour. They-----

I remember looking for lights in a certain area and it was said that would attract antisocial behaviour.

And it does not.

It attracts kids getting together and talking, which is the most social thing they can do.

Yes. It is where you can actually engage with them, find out their interests, their hobbies, what they want to get involved with, and you can attract them into the youth services then. I was really smiling when I heard that. If it is kicking a ball or a game of pool, that is a great job. As the everyone here knows, and everybody who knows youth services, there is a lot more than a game of pool and kicking a ball than goes on there.

It is talking side by side, yes.

There is an awful lot going on with the young people in building those relationships and drawing them in. There is a rationale behind what the youth workers are doing and how they are delivering it. Those family resource centres should be everywhere. They need to be everywhere because they work side by side with youth services. We have brilliant relationships with the family support and the youth services. As Ms Walsh said, Oíche na hÓige was a huge success, but it really built in expectation. We were bringing them into some of the building we work out of. The truth of the matter is that some of them are Portakabins and some are nice buildings. Some were going into schools, which was great. The schools were opening up and we had those opportunities. Foróige is engaged in one of those programmes but I will not go into that now. It is brilliant that we are getting those opportunities but we really need to look at infrastructure as a whole to make sure the youth services are able to do their jobs.

I did not get to ask the questions I wanted to ask at all, but I was just taken by what was said. I thank the witnesses.

I thank the witnesses very much for coming in today. First, I will speak as a director of Leixlip Youth and Community Centre, which recently was put in as an FRC. I come from that background. I also coach under-14s and under-15s in Gaelic football and hurling and obviously I have kids around that age. More importantly in many ways, I have also been a councillor for 15 years. We often hear about it in the infrastructure committee and one thing I have always struggled with is the infrastructure for teenagers. This question may be for Ms Walsh. When she says youth, what age group is she specifically thinking about? I know she will say all ages, but what is she really thinking in her wheelhouse.

The definitions for youth can go up to 24. They can go up to 30 in some instances but we will talk about up to 30.

Youth Fine Gael goes to 35-----

-----but at the same time, let us be realistic.

If we lobbied Young Fine Gael for infrastructure we would be happy. The youth pact goes up to 24.

The thing I always struggle with, and I find this in every community centre I have been in, is that up to 12 it is easy to get people into a room. It is sixth class. We can all visualise sixth class. I have two bloody kids in sixth class so it is easy for me to visualise it. They can go into a room and they go along and do not mind being looked after. My kids are in scouts and cubs. They can go along and it is brilliant. The trouble starts when they hit around 13 and 14. They go into first year. A bit of peer pressure kicks in. They are going into a room and there is people overlooking them. What I am thinking about here specifically is the 13 to 17-year-olds, before they may go to the pubs and that life becomes a normative thing for them. It is the gap between. First, what are the witnesses' view on the difficulties between males versus females in the 13- to 16-year-old spaces? If anybody has any thoughts, advice or views on that from an infrastructure perspective that would be great.

I thank the Deputy for his question and for being here today with us. Some of that comes back to a non-formal education, a programme of activity and learning through adventure and challenge, which is critically what we would do in Scouting Ireland. We make sure that those at those events and during that time with us there is no screens, no phones and we have a very clear view of a programme of activity, be that sailing, pioneering, orienteering, mountaineering, swimming, camping, backwoods and all of those activities. We find that we can keep those kids then at 13, 14 and 15. Not only can we keep them but we can teach them about risk-management, problem-solving and critical thinking. We are developing those kids through a programme and it is that activity that keeps them engaged.

On that point, and I am conscious of time, at what age does Scouting Ireland have its biggest drop-off? I have a good idea in sports because both of my kids are involved. Is it 13, 14 or 15? Where is biggest drop-off seen?

We do see a drop-off at 15, 16 and 17. There is no doubt about that, but we also see them coming back. There is undoubtedly a period of challenge for them. To the Deputy's own point, a lot of that is peer pressure. They see their colleagues doing something more or something different with their time, but we get them to come back as well.

It is hard to do everything. You reach a certain age and you have to be specific in picking your activities. Deputy Cronin may have been alluding to this too - or maybe she was not but that was the way I picked it up - there are people who may not be part of a group such as Scouting Ireland. I am thinking about the kids who may not be specifically tied into any community group. They may have played sports all the way along but by 14 they are the type of kids who have given it up. How do we keep them? That is where InSync and these groups really come into play in keeping people in certain communities. I do not mean just certain communities; I do not want to stereotype but I mean in keeping people engaged who need to be engaged. First, how can we support them? Second, may be a question for Sophie Lynam specifically. I think back to being a certain age. I am not sure what age she is; I can never tell and I am not even going to guess. At 15 you do not want to be inside but you are too young to be in a pub but you are nearly too old to be in a youth and community centre. You are too cool. You would prefer to sit outside on your phone and hang around underneath an awning trying to pick up a Wi-Fi signal, or whatever it might be. A few years ago it was to pick up Wi-Fi; now everyone has 5G. The point is what sort of facilities could be there. I notice there is a very good one in Lucan. It is just a wall that you can hit something off. There is another place that you can do a bit of skateboarding. It is just a hang-out place. Is there anything like that could be given to us as a template? Ultimately, we are about infrastructure. Is there something we could say to local authorities that every town should have something like this? Do the witnesses have any thoughts on that? I know there is a lot in that.

Before I bring Ms Lynam in, young people are not a homogenous group and when we are designing spaces we should be designing them with young people. I refer to co-design and co-creation.

They are pretty homogenous, within reason. Ms Walsh knows who I am talking about. These are not the lads who would necessarily play sports or those people who want to be in scouts but the people who just want to hang out. We all know them.

That is perfect. That is why we create those hang-out spaces, but there is no point us sitting in this room saying that is what a hang-out space should look like. We need to ask young people what they would like as a space for them and what a community should have. It goes back to co-creation and co-design. Even with community facilities, we hear all the time-----

I do not want to cut across Ms Walsh, but I know how the council works. Ultimately, those same kids she is talking to will be 22 and they are doing their masters by the time that is built but these spaces are being built for the current 14 and 15-year-olds. We are never going to get something built and developed for the same kids, unfortunately, and-----

It is still about having-----

-----I am not being glib.

-----a youth voice and that is often missing from all tables. Having some youth voice and co-creation is more important than having none.

I have worked with a lot of teenage groups, and I know that by the time you build whatever you need to build they have come out the other end of the process, unfortunately because we may not be in a space where we can build something now. If I get a group of transition-year students in now, or a group of ten-year-olds looking for a swimming pool, by the time it is built they will be 22.

We can talk about this another day but most youth work-----

Ultimately, what I would like to get out of this is just the infrastructure.

Most youth work is funded for disadvantaged young people. In UBU projects and Garda projects, the vast majority of money-----

Yes, the ones I was talking about.

Yes. That would be all of our members. InSync is a member of Youth Work Ireland. That is what the youth workers are supposed to be doing in the vast majority of cases and they are now very closely invigilated and overseen as to whether they are hitting targets for disadvantage, are they working with the Garda and dealing with people who are in danger of offending. Then there is more on the universal side. The drop-in centre was another big thing. Fashions come and go. Youth cafés were a big fashion about ten years ago when everyone got money for a youth café. That infrastructure is still there, but at the end of the day I would take up what the Deputy said at the very start in that it is the local authority relationship all of us in youth services on the ground need to work on as well. Where we have had success, and I can provide loads of great examples I have not got to of where things have worked, it is the relationship with the local authority that usually made it work-----

The local authorities have to deliver it. They can deliver it in their parks. They are the ones who will deliver it in their parks and in their towns and that is why I am being specific on infrastructure; I am sorry for labouring that point.

I have a few questions but Senator Stephenson has indicated.

I might continue the conversation around that subject. I take the Deputy's point that the set of young people you will consult will have aged out by the time it is built. However, there will be cross-trends. While we are all from different generations, as we will all have forgotten those really pertinent challenges, it is about having some young people in the room - even if they are not the young people who will access it - because they will remember what it is like in terms of the need. For example, with the youth cafés, my understanding from the young people I speak to would be just the free nature of it. There are so many spaces now but we do not have third spaces in the way we used to. A lot of the spaces you have to pay for. If you go to a coffee shop, there is an expectation that you will buy a coffee and a cake and you will not stay more than an hour and a half or an hour. A young person may not necessarily have the income level to be spending on those extra things. It is the focus on having free, accessible spaces. A point was mentioned around skateboards. There are certain things that societally we still do not accept, like kids skateboarding outside of skate parks, for example. If there is not an appropriate skate park, they will be skating in other places and there is pushback against that. This is the whole lighting situation and the idea of antisocial behaviour. It does have to sit with the councils. We have lots of new developments that are being built in Ireland that may not even have correct services in terms of healthcare, a local GP or a childcare facility, let alone the extra features. The point is that we should not be considering it an extra. We should be considering youth spaces as foundational to any up and coming development.

I think we would agree with that wholeheartedly. At a whole-of-government level, we have to look at it through the lens of housing and residential development, planning, infrastructure and transport. If we can co-ordinate that thought process and bring a youth-led, youth-centred approach to some of that, it might take time, yes. If we cannot fix it for today's youth, we should at least charge ourselves with fixing it for tomorrow's youth. They are going to be our future leaders. They are going to be the people who will lead this country forward and they deserve an investment beyond the €4 million a year that is currently in the NDP for youth work.

My dad was involved in plans for a community centre in 1988. It did not get built until 2009 but the thing is he is still a director of it. It does take time. Sometimes it can take 20 or 30 years, depending on the scale.

I think just at the tail end, the Deputy is getting into a really important area on which it would be good for us to come away with more of a response. When it comes to local area action plans and planning and development, it is not a world we are so familiar with.

That is the way it is done.

Exactly. We will have local youth services but is the local authority talking to the youth service about the local area action plan, the planning and development situation or even a private sector development? There are good models with community gain where a private sector builder can build a community facility. In the midlands, in Respond Housing Association, we work with the housing association, they build the community centre but often the youth service leads on providing that community facility to that housing estate. There are all sorts of ways of thinking about it. All the models I can think of come from dynamic individuals who are working with good people on the council side where things work. However, there is no systematic policy where that must happen. It might happen and sometimes it does happen. I take the examples and bring them here and say "look how good they are." There are loads of places where it does not happen. Even in Galway city, as far as I understand it, up to recently there has not been a dedicated youth facility in Galway city for years. I think there are some talks about that but it is still not there. There are places where it works, where people are dynamic and interacting, but we want it to work everywhere.

We want to systematise it, basically. I also want to give a shout out to the Barrow Bus, which is a new bus route from Bagenalstown to Graiguenamanagh. It is currently free and operating over the summer. It is multipurpose and not just targeting youth, but I know a lot of young people are able to access it and go to swimming spots with lifeguards in the good weather, with an emphasis on lifeguards of course. It is that free service that gives young people independence. It is a pilot at the moment which might turn out to be very successful. Young people love public transport and that is because they do not have cars and they need public transport. There is a lot to be learned from young people in terms of our public transport strategy, and talking to young people who really do rely on it to get to college or into town to meet friends and who rely on it for their independence.

I wanted to touch on transport and something that was said earlier about parents not bringing young people to certain youth events because they cannot or they do not want to. This reminds me of the fact that we do need more safe public transport for young people. I can count times when I have been leaving my youth spaces and have had to get my sister to collect me from the bus stop because it is too dangerous to walk at night. You have to meet young people there as well, not just creating these transport facilities, which are important, but also making sure they are safe and accessible for these young people. You need to meet them where they are at in that sense, because every young person, no matter how rural or urban, deserves to have the same access to these youth spaces and get there and home safely as well.

It is important that youth spaces and infrastructure is included in the housing and planning framework. Working side by side with the councils is going to make sure that they are provided for into the future. Not everything is going to be resolved today but it is important that we are planning forward. What we need for today is serious investment as soon as possible, just to maintain what we are doing and not looking into the future. We need future investment but we need today's investment as well. For that investment, we could look at co-located premises, youth hubs and bringing in a lot of different services. That would need cross-governmental support across committees, and joined-up thinking in relation to youth services. I was thinking about the free services that youth services provide. It is the linking as well with the family resource centres, whether that is counselling, youth services, teas and coffees, mental health, games and recreation or whatever it is, those are free, safe spaces for young people to come into and they are invaluable. If we do not have proper infrastructure, we do not have those safe spaces for young people to come into and engage with.

A last thought from me, a Chathaoirligh. We all want our youth to thrive and we want them to be active, responsible citizens. That participation starts in a local, safe community. We do not have enough of the facilities in our local communities. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and charge ourselves to do better.

Deputy Cronin has indicated after which I will have a few questions too.

I was just reading the submissions the witnesses sent in. They mention the online health task force call for a whole-of-government response to youth well-being around mental health and young people. There is also reference to the different Departments. The difficulty there is in those. For example, we have a Minister for Education and Youth and another Minister for Children, Disability and Equality. How can the Departments work better? One of Youth Work Ireland's recommendations is to see the national development plan set out an ambition to support local youth facilities across the priorities of education, youth and housing. In Kilcock, for example, they have the scouts' hall and they probably got it for half nothing. It is so hard to get those spaces now because property and land have become so expensive. Could the witnesses talk a bit about that and what kind of asks they want us to concentrate on?

The reason we highlighted the online health task force was that it was really topical. That report was done and Jillian van Turnhout dedicated a whole chapter to the importance of places and spaces for young people. We cannot talk about online harms and online safety without making sure there are safe, supportive offline environments.

She talked about youth happiness being in decline and what we can do to address that. From that perspective, we would highlight that cross-governmental focus is needed because it is health and well-being. That rests under the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, but as we said, we have written to the Minister, Deputy Calleary, and the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, and we have spoken to our own line Minister, Deputy Naughton, on that focus which is needed there.

There is a child poverty and well-being unit - a programme office - which could take this on as part of its remit, but it is about having someone take that ownership and looking at it to say that if we want to deal with child poverty and well-being, we need to look at the wider eco-system. Youth work is recognised within the Young Ireland Advisory Council. However, this is about having someone look at how we can all engage. Members will know from their own work and committee work that many of the Departments work in silos, particularly now with competitive budgets. You are restricted when you have your own envelope to look at what you are spending within it. It is about looking at who is taking ownership of making sure that when it is our community infrastructure, everyone is at the table, including the youth infrastructure in communities, so that it is not just one Department in isolation.

It would be great to see how some Department or unit could look at this.

What Department does Ms Walsh think it should be?

The child poverty and well-being programme definitely holds a lot of weight, particularly given that it sits within the Department of An Taoiseach. That is important. However, it also comes down to leveraging the local connection. That could be one idea, but that would have to be cross-governmental and with people who are serious, not just those who are dragged to a meeting once every couple of months to tick a box. It has to be someone who will drive this and say, "Okay, this infrastructure is needed, how can we do it?" and who will look at those innovative ways of doing it.

As I said, we are not going to get new services in every single community, but it is looking at what is there and how we can leverage it, collocating services, looking at the ecosystem, looking at State agencies-----

With collocation, it is mad the number of buildings that are empty for so many months, like our schools. It is crazy.

It does not matter whether you are conservative, right wing or left wing, you either look after the kids now and raise them to be good citizens and, as the witnesses said themselves, they will pay your pension, or else you will be paying to keep them in jail, mental health services or whatever. We have to look at this as an investment in our young people.

One issue that comes up a lot with projects Government is funding is that most, though not all, are paying rent. It is kind of circular logic; we get paid by the Government to run a youth project and then we give it to a landlord. Going back to an innovative and creative way of thinking about finance, there are better ways of doing that. We have rainy day funds, and we read a lot about the amount in those funds and where it is coming from, but we do not read anything about where it is being invested. I do not even know whether rainy day funds are being invested - maybe members will know. Is it going to be in Singapore or Ireland?

Innovative ways can be created and there are very good models in community finance where, instead of paying that money to a private landlord, it goes into the community and all the different parts of youth. We are not asking for ownership or control of any of these facilities, we just want to be important players or anchor tenants, depending on the situation. There is a whole debate there that could leverage out all sorts of new ways for financing things and thinking creatively about it. Again, thinking about that private sector idea of the buildings and those housing associations, there is a huge amount there.

Unfortunately, for us, we are very much multifunded, in current and capital. We have got education, justice, HSE, Tusla, local authorities and all sorts of people who all want to see their own little bit; they do not really want to know what the other people are doing. Slowly, there is some change there, but some sort of innovative thinking, wherever it sits, would really help in this.

Regarding some of the buildings that were talked about and the expense, there are an awful lot of empty buildings out there with the OPW which we could work closely with - and the HSE - to revitalise them and bring them back into community use. That in itself would save on rent.

It would be remiss of us to say the city and county councils are not supportive of youth work, because they are very supportive. They are the ones providing many of the affordable buildings, whether that is a house in a housing crisis, they are putting that into place in some of the areas to make sure we are reaching the correct targets and the young people we are working with. The approved housing bodies are doing the same thing. It is very important we acknowledge that here today.

On top of that, speaking for Foróige for a second, we are doing a pilot programme where we are going into schools and doing an after school service. It is a transition plus programme, working with a cohort of young people from the age of 14 upwards. We are doing a pilot project after school in schools, to hopefully open them up. If that is a successful pilot programme - we are very hopeful it will be - it could be rolled out afterwards.

It would be great to have that space for various groups.

It would be invaluable if that happened.

Many of the answers to the Deputy's question are in the 2024 national youth work strategy, Opportunities for Youth. Again, we need to ensure that policy gets progressed and those interdepartmental commitments start to materialise. If we can get that leadership and that direction to start thinking about youth-led decisions, we will get better outcomes for our youth.

I thank the witness for that. I have a few questions.

Could the witnesses speak to me in a little more detail on how it varies around the country with the relationships between the various members' organisations and local authorities vis-á-vis the education and training boards, ETBs? Which are their main port of call? Does it vary depending on who the chief executive is? The witnesses might speak to me a little more on that.

I can speak for Scouting Ireland. We work with all the ETBs. I have 430 scout groups on an island of Ireland basis, with 370 of those in the Twenty-six Counties. Some 360 of them had a grant from the ETB last year. We work very closely with our ETB colleagues in terms of supports available and leveraging those supports for youth outcomes.

As regards using their facilities, because many of them have meeting and gathering facilities, do the witnesses have much access to them for their groups, or do they have their own premises?

We have many of our own scout groups and scout dens-----

I know that

-----so we would not use the facilities as much. It is more the grants and supports that are available, and working very closely with our ETB colleagues in that respect.

I might ask about the local authorities, because different organisations will have more links with one than the other. Can the witnesses give us a flavour of the ETBs versus the local authorities?

For us, the relationship with ETBs is universal. We have 20 services and they all have a relationship with the ETB, mainly through UBU and other types of funding and clubs-----

What about the 14-, 15- and 16-year-old young people who are not attending school?

Again, it is the same point. There is a large amount of funding from youth affairs targeting those precise populations through targeted youth projects, UBU projects and Garda youth diversion projects. Believe it or not, we often have the opposite problem, where we think there is not enough money for universal youth work for kids who are not having problems.

The total youth affairs budget is about €90 million. For those front-line projects, the vast majority of that funding is for disadvantaged groups. Youth justice then kicks in €45 million, and you have bits and pieces from the HSE and Tusla. There is a huge amount of funding for disadvantaged youth work, so most of our organisations - those of us employing youth workers and providing services in the community - are working with disadvantaged targets that are overseen. The ETB will want us to report back the data, what we are achieving and what the outputs and outcomes are.

When it comes to local authorities, one of the things we are trying to achieve today is more consistency. We have good relations here and there. I have heard it is hard to do projects with some of them, and with others it is not that difficult. There are all sorts of arrangements, but with some of them there can be-----

Which SPC policy committees do the witnesses link in with? Are the youth organisations members of the SPCs?

Some of our members would be there locally, but it is grace and favour. It is usually community and enterprise. I can certainly say I have a list of five or six projects I was going to highlight today, and I did not highlight them all.

That is all right.

I am kind of repeating myself, but each one of those has a base where there are very good relationships on both sides. Maybe where it is not happening, people are not thinking about it. There are varying sizes, from the refurbishment of a small premises up to a big multimillion euro infrastructure project. That is sometimes hard for people on our side of the table to handle, so we either need help or for the council to lead or something like that. It varies.

The ETBI is a universal relationship, while local authorities for us are a bit more dependent on the local situation.

The answer in relation to the SPCs is really around whether you are invited onto the SPC. It will depend on whether you are invited onto an SPC and which SPC you are invited onto. You will be there then for whatever expertise you are bringing.

I just made a suggestion.

Yes, and it is a good suggestion.

Do any of the witnesses have a connection with a particular councillor of any party, Independent or whatever? Officials seem to sway maybe in the more direct way but if you have somebody advocating, there is no member at local authority level going to oppose one of your organisations being represented. It is only a suggestion. Get a friendly public representative to put your name in and they will all jump on board. That is all I will say, because nobody will want to say no.

The witnesses mentioned youth justice. Talk to me about that. How do those programmes link in with the separate programme for youth justice and the role of the juvenile liaison officers?

We are going to have to go in a minute because the "Votáil" sign has gone up.

On youth justice - I will speak for myself - we see this is as an integrated youth service so we provide whatever the young person shows up for or are looking for. It could be a drop-in centre and youth café or it could be someone who needs a mental health intervention. It could be someone who has an offending issue. That is all provided for. I think that is not necessarily as integrated on the State funding or Government side. It is slowly changing but we need the funders here and the funded there, talking to them both. Often, that does not happen. They do not talk much to each other.

Does Foróige talk to the juvenile liaison officers?

Yes. They are the ones who primarily do the referral.

In relation to the YDPs, we run into the infrastructure issue there as well because we often struggle to have premises to work with. Even though we are working one-to-one with an awful lot of those young people, or two-to-one, infrastructure is often a challenge in relation to the work we are doing with them. As the Chair knows, there are a lot more YDP or youth justice projects after opening up across the county, which is absolutely fantastic. However, if you do not have the spaces to work and engage with them - that safe space - if you are looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and not giving that safe infrastructure for the young person at the start and that safe engagement, it is going to be very challenging to engage with them.

Okay. We are going to have to go to vote so I am going to throw one or two questions and the witnesses can come back and send a note.

On diversity in your organisations, some are probably better than others. I ask the witnesses to give us a note, collectively or however you want, about diversity. Different regions of the country have a much greater level of diversity in the local population and in other areas, they might not have. You might give us a note on that. You might then talk to us about any standout gaps in regions around the country where you do not seem to be reaching through your various organisations.

The organisations are all different. Is there any standard ratio between staff numbers and volunteers? If you do not have volunteers, there is a limit to what the organisations can do. I ask the witnesses to give us a note on the volunteers or how many there are relative to staff.

In regard to young males and females, what is the level of participation or drop-off? I can imagine it is a bit different. Even over the past decade, what are the major changes you have seen affecting young people that need to be addressed? You are very close to them; you might give us a note as to how they see the trends around what their requirements have been over the years.

At this stage, I have to bring the meeting to a conclusion. There is no time. There is a vote; we will be gone for 15 minutes. The witnesses can come back in writing through the clerk. I thank the witnesses for coming. You can see the day it is in the Chamber. I am here on my own and have to go now. I thank the witnesses and adjourn our meeting until next Wednesday.