The combined speeches of the proposer and seconder shall not exceed 16 minutes and all other Senators will have six minutes. I welcome the Minister for Education and Youth, Deputy Naughton, to the House, for this important debate. The debate will commence with the proposer of the motion, Senator Tully.

I move:

That Seanad Éireann:

recognises:

- youth work is defined in the Youth Work Act, 2001 as ‘a planned programme of education designed for the purpose of aiding and enhancing the personal and social development of young persons through their voluntary participation, and which is (a) complementary to their formal, academic or vocational education and training; and (b) provided primarily by voluntary youth work organisations’;

- Ireland’s national policy objectives for all children and young people aged under 25 years are set out in Young Ireland: National Policy Framework for Children and Young People 2023-2028 (Young Ireland);

- the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027 provides for the European Youth Goals, which were designed and agreed by young people across Europe and represent young people’s vision for youth policy in Europe;

- the publication of Opportunities for Youth: National Strategy on Youth Work and Related Services 2024-2028 in September 2024 which sets out a strategic direction for the delivery of youth services during the lifetime of Young Ireland;

acknowledges:

- the critical role that youth work plays in the personal, social, and educational development of young people in Ireland;

- that youth work in Ireland offers essential education, connection, belonging and support to young people;

- that young people in Ireland today face unique challenges and require dedicated policy, legislative and resourcing support from the Government;

- the need for meaningful engagement with the youth work sector, including youth workers, volunteers, and young people themselves, in the development and implementation of policies that affect them;

- that the transformative power of youth work is beneficial for young people, their families and wider communities;

- that youth work is a vital profession and youth workers must be adequately remunerated for their work;

- that places and spaces are required for the delivery of youth work;

- that volunteers make an invaluable contribution to the youth work sector in Ireland;

notes that:

- investment in the youth work sector has not kept pace with rising costs and increased demand; and that the youth work sector is largely operating from a deficit and financial uncertainty;

- the lack of multi-annual funding for the sector poses a severe administrative burden, planning difficulties and staff recruitment and retention challenges;

- out of the total National Development Plan budget for the Department of Education and Youth, just 0.265 per cent is designated for youth affairs;

calls on the Government to:

- significantly increase current investment in the youth work sector to address current funding deficits;

- establish a €75 million Young People’s Spaces, Facilities and Services Fund, and collaborate with other Departments, Government agencies and local authorities to ensure that young people have places and spaces to engage with youth work;

- commit to moving core youth work funding to multi-annual funding within the next three years;

- publish an implementation plan for Opportunities for Youth: National Strategy on Youth Work and Related Services 2024-2028, delivered in partnership with the youth work sector;

- consult with the sector to identify opportunities for expanded services to meet increased demand in a way that is deliverable and sustainable for the sector.

I second the motion.

Tá fáilte roimh an Aire chuig an bplé ar infheistíocht i seirbhísí don óige. I do not think I have to convince anyone here of the benefits of youth work and what it does for young people. It builds their confidence, develops skills and builds relationships - healthy ones, importantly. It supports positive mental health. We see emotional support and resilience and it encourages community involvement. The fact it is voluntary and not obligatory, like school is, makes all the difference. People choose to attend whatever youth club or project is in their area. It is usually flexible in that it sets out to meet the needs of the young people in the area who are the participants in the club.

For youth work to be successful, there is a need for proper financial investment to maintain both existing levels of service and for capital investment. I acknowledge there have been moderate increases in funding over the past few years in different budgets but it is not sufficient to maintain existing service levels, because it has been negated by inflation, increased employer costs and population growth. The annual city of Dublin actual cost exercise found there was an 8.1% shortfall in necessary funding for youth services and 88% of respondents to the National Youth Council of Ireland survey recently of youth groups affiliated to the council answered they were very concerned about insufficient funding. If you do not have sufficient funding, you will have issues with the provision of the service and there are issues. There are issues with recruitment and with retention of youth workers. The staff are under pressure. They are under time pressure and are time poor. They are on reduced hours and in reduced spaces but the need is growing at the same time.

Some of the funding streams are quite difficult to manage and there are often significant disparities between allocated budgets and the true costs of delivery. We find that many of the workers, whether they are employed as youth workers within services or are voluntary youth workers, are spending their time worrying about covering the costs, overheads, rent and so on because everything is increasing in cost.

I thank the National Youth Council of Ireland for its engagement on this motion and it has done a lot of work and research with all of the participants. The current investment in existing levels of service is €90 million per year and the National Youth Council of Ireland is proposing an increase of €13 million on that, a 15% increase, to just stabilise the services. The National Youth Council of Ireland feels youth work is under pressure and needs to be stabilised and increased funding will do that. We recognise the need for multi-annual funding to allow for planning and certainty but first, the National Youth Council of Ireland wants a steady stream of investment in order that it can stabilise what is there, consolidate services on the ground, get a good base going and look at expanding from there.

In regard to capital funding there are already dedicated spaces. Many of them are ageing buildings with problems and issues that are in need of upgrade. There is not sufficient funding to actually address that. Youth Work Ireland had a presentation in the Freemasons' Hall today and I was speaking to people there who were from my own area of Cavan and Monaghan. I spoke to one youth worker who works in Clones. They have a wonderful youth service there but it is located in an older building. The building was a primary school at one time and it was rented to the service by the diocese. The roof is leaking and has been for years so a lot of damage has been done to the building and the service cannot afford or access funding to repair it. They need to be able to repair that building but it is not possible at the moment.

I spoke to another young person there and she told me that in her Foróige club there are around 20 members and around 15 on a waiting list but they cannot accommodate them because the space they meet in is so small. They need a bigger space. The need is there but they cannot meet the need. We see this all over, where the spaces are there but need upgrading or we need new or increased spaces. Not every service needs its own space; it can rent a facility, but getting a space that is sufficient in size is often difficult so we need to see an increase in the capital expenditure. In the national development plan, of the €7.5 billion that was allocated to the Department of Education and Youth, only €20 million, which is 0.265%, went to youth. That is very little.

It will be €4 million per year from this year until 2030. There is no sign of that money. Perhaps the Minister will elaborate on when even that €4 million will become available. All money is welcome and will do good, but it is not sufficient to meet the need and there needs to be increased investment. The National Youth Council of Ireland is suggesting an additional €13 million in capital finding to bring it up to €17 million per year for the next four years.

The young persons' facility and services fund was established a number of years ago to attract at-risk young people in disadvantaged areas, especially those where there were significant drug problems. We need to see that strengthened but we also need to extend that because there are other harms now for young people. We see that online. We see rural and social isolation. We see mental health pressures and the impacts of poverty. A €75 million fund for that service to help people who are at risk and in disadvantaged areas would be very welcome.

Opportunities for Youth is the national strategy for youth work and related services. It was launched in September 2024. That was part of the general election. There is no implementation plan for it yet and we are 19 months into the strategy. I have no issue with the strategy. There are very good objectives in it. However, they cannot be realised unless we strengthen the existing services and have an implementation plan. I cannot understand launching a strategy without an implementation plan. The current plan is for just this year and we are already into the fourth month of this year and there is no sign of an implementation plan. I fear there is going to be a rush to try to reach the objectives that are laid down in that plan and that it is going to become a box-ticking exercise and a race through. I question the governance of the implementation of the plan.

No national youth work advisory committee has been established. That was provided for under the Youth Work Act but is not in existence at the moment. It was to consult with the Minister on youth work. There is talk of setting up two separate groups, but they are not yet established. I want to see that done in partnership with the sector so we ensure that those working groups can work with the Minister to implement this plan. They cannot do that without proper investment. That is vitally needed.

As I said, I met the representatives of Comhairle na nÓg earlier at Youth Work Ireland. It was interesting to talk to them. They were very capable young people. I asked them what their requests were. It was not specifically to do with youth work but they are involved in Comhairle na nÓg, which is outside school, even though it is facilitated through the school programme. Those young people are also involved in Foróige. As I said, they were talking about the lack of capacity. One of the things they asked was why there is no Leap card for young people to access public transport. They said that especially in rural areas, they have a ticket to get on the school bus to go to school. Why could there not be some sort of a ticket that they can buy and use on the school bus, as well as on Local Link and Bus Éireann services?

Those representatives also talked to me about the lack of funding for buses for trips. Coach hire has got extremely expensive, as I have heard from groups of elderly people and young people, to go anywhere on day trips or anything like that. In some areas of Dublin, Foróige clubs have specified buses that can transport people to Emerald Park or wherever they are going for the day. If people from Cavan and Monaghan want to get up there, it is very expensive. It would cost hundreds of euro to rent a coach for the day. Those people do not have the money. They are looking for more investment in buses for youth activities to bring them on trips and different things like that.

They mentioned one more issue to do with schools, which falls within the Minister's remit. That was counselling in schools. They feel too much emphasis is put on the guidance counsellor to provide counselling services. They are often not qualified counsellors. They are qualified guidance counsellors but not qualified counsellors. Young people often say they do not want to talk to the same person about education and their issues or mental health issues or whatever else they want help with. That issue also came up.

I am interested in hearing more about exactly when it is planned to have the implementation plan and how it is going to be implemented. We want to see the objectives reached, but I do not think that is possible, as I said, without the plan and without the proper investment.

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. As has been said, it is important that we invest in young people and our communities. One of the issues that comes up when talking to youth workers around the inner city of Dublin is the impact of housing prices and accommodation. As Senator Tully mentioned, recruitment and retention are issues. If a youth worker is living close to the city centre or around the city centre, it is not a problem. Youth workers would like to invest and work in their local communities. It is about ensuring that more people are going through college. There is a community development and youth work course in Maynooth University. We want people working through that course. We want to produce more students from the inner city.

I am not sure if the Minster has visited the Talk about Youth club at St. Andrew's Resource Centre. It is a brilliant youth club. There is also the South Area Youth Service, SAYS, club off Mercer Street. Neither of them has its own space. They have to rent space. They do not have the resources to work with the kids. The spaces they can rent often are not big enough. That has a huge impact on the kids, who require certainty to engage in the youth work. I know that Ms Eileen Nalty in Talk about Youth and Mr. Brendan Dowling in SAYS, as well as Robbie, Louisa, Carmel and Lisa, do incredible work with the young people in an area that is being left behind. It is a very difficult area to work in. We saw the riots that happened down there. We have seen a lot of antisocial behaviour. Many kids are hard to reach and hard to work with, and they do not have the resources. As I said, they do not have the spaces. There should be more funding for outreach to ensure that those kids who are harder to react to or engage with are engaged. That is not happening.

I know that on the north side, there are quite a number of youth clubs. Because of the Mulvey report and the north-east inner city, NEIC, initiative, funding has gone in there, as the Minister will know, to ensure there is funding for youth clubs. The same cannot be said about the south side. They are effectively one community. I know the river divides them, but the north and south inner city are effectively one community. There are lots of family connections and interactions. They have the same issues. Both areas have been left behind by the State. Investment has not gone into the south inner city.

As I said, Talk about Youth does amazing work and is really committed. It has nowhere from which to work. Those involved never know if they will be able to find somewhere to rent and there is no certainty around it. The organisation finds it difficult to recruit and retain staff. Housing is so expensive in the inner city, particularly on this side of the inner city. People are competing with others whose wages come from Google and the other high-tech companies. That is who is renting all the new, modern premises. Youth workers, on youth worker salaries, are not going to be able to compete with those whose wages come from Google and the other high-tech companies. We need to get more people from the inner city though college and then they can work with the young people who are here.

I have a family member who is involved in boxing. That is youth work, although it does not fall under that remit because it is a sport. The work that boxing clubs do is absolutely incredible. The volunteers that are there are absolutely incredible. It would be great to see some way that those clubs could get more funding. I know it is not directly related to the Minister's responsibility, but Nutgrove Boxing Club, the Dublin Docklands Boxing Club and Baldoyle Boxing Club do incredible work.

Out in Baldoyle, Christy Dunne, Ronan and Graham do absolutely incredible work with young people. They are there during the day for all-Irelands or the Dublin leagues. They bring them to sparring sessions. They do absolutely incredible work and they do it for nothing. Those clubs should be better resourced. I think of the conditions some of those clubs are in. I do appreciate it is not the Minister’s responsibility but they do fantastic work with young people. That is an aside but I think it is important to acknowledge the role played by volunteers not only in boxing but in all sports clubs.

When we are talking about youth and youth services, it is crucial to focus on the housing crisis, on payments and on the need to get students from the inner city through college so they can learn the skills that are required for youth work.

Before I call the next speaker, I welcome Dr. Orla Murray and Helen Rose, who are guests of Senator Curley, to the Gallery. I also welcome the guests of Senator Cosgrove: Róisín O'Sullivan and Chloe Higgins. They are welcome to Seanad Éireann. I now call Senators Curley and Fitzpatrick.

Trí nóiméid agus trí nóiméid.

Ceart go leor.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. I want to begin by acknowledging the Sinn Féin Senators who brought it forward. I could be wrong but it is fairly clear they had closely consulted the ETB sector when they put this together. I was speaking to the head of ETB youth services in Galway during the week and it has been received very well so I commend the work they have done on the motion.

At its core the motion recognises something fundamental – that youth work is not an add-on to education or community life but is central to it. As defined in the Youth Work Act 2001, it is a structured voluntary process that supports the personal and social development of young people, complementing formal education. We in government fully recognise that. Youth work provides something that cannot always be delivered in classrooms or formal settings. It supports young people at critical stages in their lives, particularly those who are marginalised, vulnerable or at risk. It is worth stating clearly that this Government sees youth work not as a cost but as in investment in prevention, in opportunity and ultimately in stronger communities.

While the motion highlights funding pressures, and those concerns are valid, it is also important to set out clearly what is being delivered. In budget 2026, the Government allocated over €90 million in current funding for youth services, an increase of over €4.5 million on the previous year. This funding supports programmes reaching over 450,000 young people across the country. We are also seeing over €54.5 million invested in the UBU Your Place Your Space scheme, which targets young people most at risk and expands services, with new UBU projects supporting an additional 1,000 young people. Over €16.7 million is being provided for national youth organisations through the youth services grant scheme. Over 1,200 local youth clubs are reaching more than 60,000 young people in their communities. Importantly, for the first time, we now have a multi-annual capital commitment with €4 million per year secured to 2030 for youth infrastructure. This directly addresses one of the longstanding asks from the sector around facilities and spaces. I had the honour for five years of being the chair of the youth and arts committee on GRETB. I went all across Galway and Roscommon and saw the interventions that these measures make. They really change the lives of young people, particularly marginalised young people. We saw a huge intervention with girls from both the Roma and Traveller communities to try to get them out of their houses and into the community which was really welcome.

This is not an issue of disagreement on principle. Across this House there is broad consensus on the importance of youth work. The Government’s position differs slightly because we are not starting from zero - we are already increasing funding, expanding services, investing in infrastructure and implementing a long-term national strategy. While we welcome this motion and the focus it brings, our task now is to continue delivery, deepen investment and ensure sustainability. Ultimately it is about ensuring that every young person in Ireland, regardless of their background, has access to the support spaces and opportunities they need to thrive.

I thank the Minister for coming in for this motion. I want to commend the Sinn Féin Senators on bringing the motion forward. Not every person is born equal and not every person is lucky in the lottery of birth. The circumstances someone is born into can be greatly enhanced if they have the opportunity to have access to good schools and a good community. Youth services are an essential part of that. Youth services provide young people with the capacity to develop their confidence and life skills and to learn life skills in a safe space. I want to commend the Minister and her Department on the funding they have secured and on the support they are giving to youth services around the country.

Going back 18 years, myself and others founded a youth service in Cabra, Cabra for Youth. We are one of the independent youth services operating in the capital. Cabra for Youth grew out of the community. With the support of CDYS and now funding from the Minister’s Department but also the Department of justice, we operate both a UBU and a Department of justice programme. Therefore it is unique. It is allows us to do both targeted and more universal work. I would welcome a visit by the Minister if she ever had time. We would love for her to visit and to share with her our experiences. Over the 18 years, some of the first people we engaged with are now young adults and some of them are parents themselves. It is incredible to see those humans develop and grow and come back and participate. It is really important. I do not think we, as a society, have historically or traditionally understood youth services but I believe the Minister does value and understand them. It is complementary to our education system, our families and broader society.

I have a couple of asks. I want to acknowledge the increase in funding which the Minister did secure in the budget. The €90 million is significant. However, I would say, as a voluntary director on a youth service board, the costs of operating youth services have only increased right across the board. For the sector to be sustainable we really need multi-annual funding. Every year I have heartache thinking about whether we will get our allocation and how much of an allocation we will get. We have gone through some very dark times. We had to put our youth workers on a four-day week at one point when things were economically bad but we managed to sustain the service. It continues and has gone from strength to strength. When we can pool funding from both the Minister’s Department and the Department of justice, it allows us to really maximise the services. When we see young people discussing things like bullying or sexuality, learning barbering or bike skills, or learning to cook for each other, we see them develop in front of our eyes. It is invaluable.

Our staff are incredible but as a sector, professional youth workers are not adequately valued. The fact that there is no multi-annual funding inhibits career development, retention and recruitment, as the Senator mentioned. Recruitment is a constant struggle. We are lucky to have full employment in this country, and we are privileged to have an economy that is strong. We can invest and we should invest so that every young person has access. Not every young person will avail of it but every young person should have access to youth services that are both universal and targeted.

On the age cohort, it is not the same in every community but in some communities there is a need for young people from the age of eight years to be engaged. Some families really need that extra help. For others, the need will not come until much later when they are teens or maybe early 20s. It is about adequately resourcing it.

I commend the Minister and her Department on the work they are doing. I would welcome it if the Minister wished to visit. Most importantly, I ask her to use her office to engage the Government to continue to invest in and expand youth services.

Before I call the next speaker, I welcome Mary to the Gallery. Her husband Joe is also here but he happens to be on the wrong side of the glass here. She is sitting with great friends Karen and Michael Eccles. They are most welcome to Seanad Éireann. They are between two great people in the O’Reillys. I thank Joe for all his years of service to Seanad Éireann. I thank Mary as well because behind Joe is Mary keeping him on track. I thank Mary for being here. I call Senator Scahill.

The Minister is very welcome back to the Chamber. I also welcome Mary O’Reilly who has strong Roscommon links. I know she is the backbone to Senator O’Reilly.

I welcome the motion from my Sinn Féin colleagues. We all know the importance of youth work. We know how it is preventative and how early intervention is very important in reducing long-term costs in health, justice and social protection. We also have to acknowledge that about 450,000 young people engage with youth services nationally every year. The work is important in terms of mental health support, social inclusion, equality, preventing early school leaving and supporting vulnerable and marginalised individuals.

Since the Minister has taken over this portfolio, she has increased funding in this sector. As Senator Curley mentioned, more than €90 million has been invested, which is a €4.5 million increase on last year. Capital funding has increased by €3.5 million, bringing it to a total of €4 million. We are, therefore, investing in this area. We have identified the problem. We on the education and youth committee are probably not giving the youth element as much time as we should, and maybe that is something that we as representatives on that committee should probably focus on.

I had the privilege last summer of visiting one of the UBU centres in Athlone with the Minister's predecessor. It was concerned with the summer meals programme. While it is still in a pilot phase, it was making an impact on the community in Athlone. I welcome that the pilot programme has been extended and further invested in. A total of 3,200 students have been supported through that scheme. The Minister has increased the funding from €500,000 to €600,000. The programme is working, we are going to get more students through it and it is going to make an impact. We have to be happy any time we can engage with more young people. The budget for UBU centres is just under €55 million and the initiative reaches just under 92,000 young people annually.

We are addressing disadvantaged, marginalised and the most at-risk young people. It is not like we are not listening to these people regularly. Today alone, we had briefings from the Comhairle na nÓg in Roscommon on a scheme for early intervention in mental health issues. It is a scheme where the students came up with the solution themselves. It is a listening and support service undertaken by youth workers dedicating specific hours to specific students weekly. The cost of the pilot programme being proposed was about €170,000, and that was to deal with all the students in Roscommon alone. It is something we will come back to the Minister on at a later stage. I have the group’s Listen Link promotional book for her to have a look at some time. Additionally, Senator Cosgrove had a briefing from ATU Sligo student union concerning the lack of student accommodation. This is an issue causing stress and mental health issues for younger people before they even go to third level institutes. There was a good attendance at that meeting too. It is about us as public representatives going in, listening to these issues and seeing how we can address them.

Following that, as we heard already, Youth Work Ireland had a briefing in the Freemasons' Hall. It was great to see the number of representatives who went to that meeting because each of us has our own individual issues in our own areas. Who better to give us that information than the youth services working in those areas? I commend Youth Work Ireland, Foróige and the National Youth Council of Ireland on all the work they are doing on the ground.

One of the schemes I love to see invested in is Youth Night. It is one of these publicity nights, but it is also a way of bringing in people from all types of cultures, showing them the opportunities and what can be done when their kids are given the chance. Senator Curley mentioned the ETBs and how he was involved in the Galway-Roscommon ETB previously. He should be probably less involved in Roscommon in future. I visited some of the events on Youth Night. Students from lots of different demographic backgrounds were putting on performances that they would not have had the opportunity to put on if we were not investing in programmes like Youth Night.

A lot has been done. The fact the Minister is increasing the funding in all these areas is welcome. The sky is the limit in what we can do in this area. As the fact that we are all supporting this motion shows, it is going to take cross-party and cross-House engagement. I think we should all look at ourselves to see what we can do from there. I thank the Minister.

I thank the Minister for being here. I also thank my Sinn Féin colleagues for tabling the motion. As Senator Scahill mentioned, earlier we attended the Youth Work Ireland and Roscommon Comhairle na nÓg briefing on the youth response to mental health issues. We met the most amazing people who are going to take on the world. It is fantastic that they have the opportunity to do so.

On the other side of things, I recently attended a young offenders' prison. Unfortunately, I met young people who had come undone in life for one reason or another. I do not condone criminality in any way, but I do question whether the facilities those young people had in their environments means we let them down in that regard. I spoke to one individual who was a very well-known criminal in his area. I got talking to him about his life and about what led him to the situation he was in. It turns out he was seven years of age when his father was killed in a car accident. His mother used to drink a lot, and so she used to bring home people in the evening after the pub and then he would maybe get a bit of a battering. What he used to do was to wet the bed at night. The mother would check the bed, and if it was wet, she used to get his face and rub it around inside the toilet bowl. At seven years of age, he used to get into his school uniform, climb out the window when he heard the mother was coming home with whoever and he walked around the local town until school started the next morning. Now, we have a criminal in a detention facility, and this is the seven-year-old kid who never had an opportunity.

That is why, with the organisation I am involved in, Tiglin, we have started youth cafes, which I have mentioned previously. For example, there is one in Greystones. It is a drop-in hub with all the supports for young people. We have put in pizza machines and barista machines and made it a welcoming environment. We have initiatives like crafts, a Garda diversion programme with Crosscare and so on. Whether young people are there to meet a new friend or simply to sit in a space, that cafe in Greystones provides a social alternative to the streets to a person who is perhaps marginalised. By providing a safe harbour like that, we are not just giving the young people something to do; we are giving them a sense of ownership over their community.

We have also teamed up with It Takes a Village in Greystones. The Minister probably knows it. The lady who runs it, Rachel Harper, is on the board of Tiglin. She has created a framework that means we can work in conjunction with the likes of Tiglin's youth cafes. This means there is a practical guideline, on social media, phones, etc., for parents and young people. We have actively encouraged the young people to be a source of their own destination by getting involved in how social media should influence their lives. This has provided a real antidote to digital isolation and is giving people their own future into their hands.

We often wait for a young person to feel isolated or disconnected, and the experience in the detention facility showed me that. Support for facilities like the youth cafes, Tiglin being an example, is proactive, community-based and a common-sense approach. Belvedere Youth Club in Dublin city centre works with over 400 young people weekly. Many of them come from a disadvantaged background of poverty, trauma and social exclusion. Its model focuses on building the same type of trust to include young people and build up a long-term relationship and life skills. The CEO of Belvedere Youth Club, Jenny Courtney, is kicking the ball out of the park when it comes to youth work and what that club is accomplishing.

She is saying that many of the youth workers are dealing with complex issues. There are huge gaps in mental health support and family support for young people but they also do not have the funding or recognition to match what they need to do. Clearly, youth services are underfunded, workers are filling gaps left by statutory agencies and support for younger people is limited by wider family and community issues.

The current funding models do not reflect the needs on the ground. We need more flexible policy whereby maybe we need to look at youth work for seven- to nine-year-olds rather than focusing on unsuitable childcare facilities. We also need to recognise youth work for what it is. The detention facility I visited would not have half the population in it if we got the youth work correct. Youth work is doing far more than it is funded or recognised for. I have seen that at first hand. Even in the rehabilitation centres I have through Tiglin, a lot of the people you chat or talk to will say their childhood was the basis for their trauma. All they needed was a facility or proper investment in youth care that would have given them an opportunity for a different life. Unless we get that right, young people will continue to fall through the cracks. We need to give young people more places like the Tiglin youth café in Greystones and like the Belvedere youth club in Dublin, more places for them to belong and where we can make a difference in their lives.

I move amendment No. 1:

After the word “recognises:” to insert the following paragraph:

"- the publication of a report on The Future of Youth Work by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth in July 2023, which acknowledged the essential role of youth work in vindicating the rights of our young people, and the need for the youth work sector to receive the investment and recognition required to sustain this vital work;".

I second the amendment.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. It is great to have her here. I really welcome this debate and I am really thankful to the Sinn Féin Senators for bringing this forward.

I am a professional youth worker. I qualified as a youth worker in 2001. We were the second set of graduates from the course in UCC. The Youth Work Act 2001 was out at that stage. We have come a long way and it is great that the youth services are back within the Department of education again. I have to say before I start that unfortunately, there is still no standard youth work pay scale. There are different titles within youth work. When I started working as a youth worker, I worked in Belfast, Dublin, Donegal, Sligo and all over the country as a youth worker with different organisations such as Foróige, ETB and Home Youth Liaison Service, HYLS. We still do not have a straightforward pay scale. Some of the issues we are talking about tonight come from that.

As a trade unionist, it is very hard to unionise people to come together to look for pay agreements or look for increases in salaries because we do not have one clear, full pay scale and people who work as youth workers can be funded through the Department of justice and the Department of children, besides the Minister's own Department. I know she has made great strides and there has been an increase in the youth work budget, but is it 0.2% of the full education budget goes to youth services? The Minister might clarify that when we come back. Having said that, we have come a long way. I remember when I qualified as a youth worker, my parents said to me they had no idea what it was because it was such a new profession. It is great we are getting that recognition.

From listening to everyone here speaking, because of the lack of multi-annual funding, it is very hard to retain staff in youth services. It is hard to plan and I think everyone would agree, and it is probably one of the main asks from this, that youth organisations should get multi-annual funding, not only so they are able to recruit staff but also so they are able to retain staff. If there was a proper pay scale, then incremental pay scales could come in. I know at one stage, Foróige paid more than Youth Work Ireland. I worked with the Home Youth Liaison Service so there is a lot of differential between pay scales. One regular pay scale would alleviate an awful lot of that.

On capital projects, at the moment, youth services are coming from a very low base. I know investment has increased but there are so many buildings around the country that need a huge amount of upgrading. That is where some of the additional capital funding is wanted. That should come from across the Departments. Youth work is not just a single identity. The nature of youth work and the expression "mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí" is the premise for youth work. Regarding investment in youth work, early years and right down, I know some of the organisations I worked in, such as the Home Youth Liaison Service, or if it was a targeted youth service, you were able to work with young people as young as eight where it is different for others. There is a bit of difference around what services are provided within the youth work space and within social care, such as the age of certain young people you are able to work with. It is about the investment in existing capital projects but also looking at youth spaces for all.

I also went over to Youth Work Ireland today and it is moving away from certain things. Of course, there is a need for targeted youth work and there will always be, like the UBU projects and like the justice projects. There will always be a need for targeted youth work, where it is referral based and there are specific moneys going into that but there is also a real need for youth spaces for all and youth work for all. Any young person should have access to a youth space and it can be there that young people can be identified if they have additional needs if there are professional youth workers there, who are qualified and trained, to recognise this family needs a bit of extra support and this young person needs extra support. They know the channels to go through, such as Tusla, Meitheal or child protection and they are able to access those organisations because they work on the ground and they know. That is the role of a youth worker.

Many of my friends are youth workers and they still work in the youth work space. They say there are so many complex needs for young people that are developing. Young people are concerned about housing, they are concerned about addiction and they are concerned about social media. The needs of young people have increased but there is also the appreciation, as I would call it, not just monetary appreciation but the need to have proper funding, contracts and pensions to make sure that youth workers are not completely stressed out and they are not completely overloaded with their work. That is often the case when you are working on the front line like that. There are not enough resources there to ensure staff will stay.

More and more, we will rely on youth workers, particularly in the age of social media. There needs to be more youth workers employed specifically to look at critically educating people or getting people critically engaged in thought but also around social media. With youth spaces for all, the nature of working in a youth centre and the nature of youth work is that you are open, it is inclusive, it is non-judgemental and young people feel safe to ask questions or to make sure they are allowed to be themselves in a space where they are at themselves. That is another area we will have to continue to look at.

It is great that other Senators have said that, within the education committee, youth work gets better emphasis. I am on the children's committee and that is now being removed from it. It is really important that it does get it within those committees.

Before I call Senator Flynn, I welcome the Community Action Tenants Union from Ballymun and Finglas. They are most welcome to Seanad Éireann. I thank them for being here.

I also welcome the guests from Ballymun this evening to the Visitors Gallery.

We are the only country in Europe that has a Youth Work Act. We value youth work as a society. We know the important role youth services and youth workers play in any young person's life. Youth work is not a luxury. As I got up to deliver this speech, I thought about Bernadette Devlin's quote about how we live in an unjust world; we are not meant to grow up in one. It is really unfortunate that many of the young people in this country are growing up in an unjust world.

If you are from the Traveller community, if you are a young person who is LGBTQI+, if you are a young person who is black or brown, if you are a young person with a disability or you are just a young person who is different, you need those supports. I came up through a youth service in Ballyfermot, the Ballyfermot Youth Service, BYS, and it genuinely changed my life.

I was involved in a youth forum in The Base youth centre in Ballyfermot. I saw there was more to life than the halting site I was born and reared in. It gave me equality of opportunities to go beyond Ireland, to go to other countries, and to have that opportunity to not just be the young person from the halting site but to be the young person who was involved in her community through youth work.

Youth work is a different form of education. I know this as a qualified youth worker. I went back to university as a mature student at Maynooth University to study youth work and community development work. I put my hand up. Anyone who knows me well will say that my first mindset was thinking, "I do not want to be a youth worker. All they do all day is drink tea and play pool." That is not the case. The drinking tea and playing pool is the engagement with young people. Non-formal education is absolutely critical. The youth workers at The Base knew I was not 18; I was only 17. I managed to get onto the board of management - you had to be 18 for that. I remember being a Traveller and feeling so lost within my identity. It was nothing to do with my community but was about how Travellers were treated. I remember being a young person representing all young people of Ballyfermot. What a privilege. I know for a fact that youth workers save lives. They saved my life numerous times. I could have gone down any wrong road but I had somewhere to go. It was that cup of tea and the slice of toast. It was being told, "You are a great worker. The young people listen to you and you can be a youth leader". They empower our young people to go on to university.

A young woman is doing a placement with me right now. I spoke about her yesterday. She is not ashamed to say that she is in care. Again, she is in a Youthreach and is heavily involved in her youth service in her local area. That is saving her life. There are so many young people whose lives have genuinely been saved by youth workers. I went up to Foróige in Tallaght last month and met with a group. There was a young Traveller woman in the group. She was so intelligent. They had a youth council meeting and never before have I ever seen Traveller children being involved at a local level. They are either involved through Exchange House or other Traveller organisations. A lot of the time we segregate Travellers into just Traveller organisations. It was lovely to see this young woman being involved at her local level, just like I was when I was 17 and involved at local level.

For many a young person who attends the local youth service, it is a different kind of education. It gives them a world of opportunities. We know that youth work suffered deep from the cuts after the financial crash with Government funding reduced by 31%. Many services in working class areas have still not recovered. The National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, and others have called for an increase in youth work funding. It should be prioritised. We have an Act. We are brilliant at European level when it comes to youth work. We do the exchanges. We are very active at European level but we need to put our money where our mouth is. We really need to invest in youth work and we need to see youth workers as professionals in their roles, which they are. They are professionals in a different form of education and it must be funded.

I support 100% the Sinn Féin motion today, along with my Civil Engagement colleagues. As Bernadette Devlin said, "We were born into an unjust system: we are not prepared to grow old in it". There are thousands of children today in this country being saved by youth workers. We need to invest in this critical youth work. It is not a luxury. It is a basic right, just like education. I support the motion, along with the Civil Engagement group.

I thank the Minister, Deputy Naughton, and her officials for coming here today. I acknowledge and thank Sinn Féin. This is a very timely use of Private Members' business and I thank Sinn Féin for it. It gives us an opportunity. Those who know me know that I tend to cut to the chase. At the end of the day, there is a lot of pious stuff in Private Members' motions but the real thing is "What are we asking?". What are we calling on the Government to do? This motion is calling on the Government to commit. Clearly people have spoken in favour of it, which is fantastic. We are committing here tonight to the establishment of a €75 million young people's spaces, facilities and services fund, and to collaborate with other Departments, Government agencies and the local authorities to ensure that young people have places and spaces to engage with youth work. That is marvellous. It is a commitment that everyone has spoken in favour of. I just hope that somehow the Minister will be able to secure that funding in the next budget or over a period of budgets. That is what the Seanad, across parties, is asking the Minister to do here today and Senators have indicated their full support for it. We are also committed to moving to core youth work funding on a multi-annual basis. I commend that.

I fully support the three amendments and have indicated that I will second them. I thank Senators Lynn Ruane and Alice-Mary Higgins, who unfortunately cannot be here. They are involved in other parliamentary business tonight. They will have my full support. I am very happy to put on the record my seconding of those three amendments.

I will say a few other things. I will not rehash what has already been said, but I acknowledge the very important and significant contributions by Kathryn Walsh and Grace McManus. Many will know Grace McManus who was a former Sinn Féin councillor in Bray, County Wicklow, and a worker and committed member within Sinn Féin. She is very committed, as is Kathryn Walsh. They sent some documentation. It is very important. I also acknowledge Senator Scahill; I will touch on him in a moment if time permits. I draw the Minister's attention to a document from the National Youth Council of Ireland, which is the Pre Budget Submission 2027: Securing Foundations. I will make three points and I will read them onto the record right here. I am sure the Minister has a copy or we can supply a copy. One of the principal questions is why we need to support youth work. It states, "Youth work services play an essential role in improving outcomes for young people by providing safe spaces, support and new opportunities."

Another key point that I took out of this document, which I think is worth bringing into this debate here tonight, is a 2026 survey response from an NYCI member organisation:

Our biggest financial challenges are staffing-related. Retaining staff and managing their workload is difficult, and we urgently need additional funding to hire at least one more team member to handle the increasing demands and ensure current staff are not overworked.

It is an important point that I know the Minister will understand. Another survey response in the report relates to capital investment, which states, "Two satellite projects operate from portacabins and require upgrading and modernisation. Our main building has issues with pyrite and we will have to relocate at some point to enable repairs to be carried out". The Minister might consider this NYCI Pre Budget Submission 2027: Securing Foundations. We have a long way to go but I just wanted to say that.

My colleague, Independent Senator Aubrey McCarthy, talked about youth cafés. They are really important. I would urge anyone who has not been out to Greystones to see the work of Senator McCarthy with youth cafés and support to go and do so.

Senator Scahill facilitated a very important meeting, which was a gathering today in the AV room. It was interesting. A document was circulated with it and the Senator has indicated he can make one available to the Minister. I acknowledge the very positive contribution of work, both from him and the Roscommon Comhairle na nÓg. It was very significant. The research and report was sponsored by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. I acknowledge that is important. I also acknowledge Youth Work Ireland Midlands and Roscommon County Council.

It was a very moving day. I want to thank the Senator for the presentation. When I opened the cover of the presentation, it reminded me about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Young people have the right to say what they think about anything that affects them. What they say must be listened to carefully. When decisions that affect young people are made by official bodies, they must listen to what the young people want and feel.

I will finish on this point, because I am a realist. All services, like youth services and additional services, cost money and we have to prioritise those most in need. The strongest case has to be made. While we advocate for increased services and supports for youth services and capital funding, we must never lose sight of what is most important, namely, vulnerable communities and vulnerable people, vulnerable young people who have fallen out of education or who were brought up in State care and other institutions of this State who then, at the age of 15 and 16, may have found themselves homeless in our cities and our towns. They have to be our most important focus because, as the Jesuits used to say, give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man. I believe in that. It is so important that we tap in early to all young people but particularly those who are on the margins, who are vulnerable and who have never been supported to realise their full potential. Everyone is important, but we have limited resources. That has to be our most important focus.

I want to thank Sinn Féin and all those who have contributed tonight. They were all very positive. I thank the Minister for her time.

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion forward and I really appreciate the cross-party support around it. Comhairle youth work is very much the cornerstone of equality for young people. It is about social justice and meaningful participation. When so many children are excluded from accessing spaces, youth work is an entryway to civic engagement, being "real adults" and that level of growth they can undergo.

The sector is supporting thousands of young people every year. Where I am based, in Carlow and Kilkenny, we have Ossory Youth, the Drum Youth Centre and Carlow Regional Youth Services. They are all incredible organisations doing such cool work and such important work in providing supportive spaces for young people but also challenging young people by challenging all of the harmful norms we are seeing a lot of young people being exposed to in the online space. Youth workers play such a key role in providing that mentorship, particularly when young people often feel quite isolated. We have all been teenagers. They can feel quite isolated from their families and their parents. Youth work provides that space where they can engage with an adult in a partnership of equals.

Staff are highly skilled and highly trained but often experience burnout. The level of professionalism a lot of the staff in the youth work space have is not reflected in their contracts. It is not reflected by society. It is considered the voluntary sector or voluntary space when in fact these are people with master's degrees and PhDs, who have gone through many levels of education and provide such a vital service.

Youth work has had a funding cut in real terms leading to an 8.1% shortfall it is experiencing. That cannot be bridged in only incremental increases. We need to see funding to allow the sector to grow, to expand and to deliver for future young people. We have of course already heard about the importance of multi-annual funding. It is so important for every civil society NGO. Annual funding is an absolute nightmare no matter what the space because it does not allow you to plan and be forward thinking. We have already heard in this debate that the National Youth Council of Ireland needs an investment of €27.3 million to sustain and develop the work it is doing.

Senator Flynn used the phrase, which is quite beautiful, that youth work saves lives. She spoke so eloquently about what it was like to be a young woman from the Traveller community who has faced so much systemic exclusion from society. Hearing from her about the key role of youth work shows it is so crucial. I grew up in Belfast and I was involved in lots of cross-community projects delivered by youth workers. While we are very far from the early nineties and 2000s today, we are seeing so much division in our communities. Social cohesion is being undermined. The horrors of the digital space and the online world is leading to a lot of trouble for young people. However, more than that, the traditional structures of our communities seem frayed in many ways and youth work offers space to bring children and young people back into the space to ensure they are not further isolated from mainstream society.

Young people are under such stress. All of us have young people in our lives. When I look back at being at that stage, I feel that young people today are burdened with so many worries they should not have on them. Youth work and youth spaces offer a really safe environment for them to articulate that and overcome those things in safe spaces.

If we want to challenge the new norms we are seeing for young people and if we want to give them opportunities to thrive, to explore, to be challenged, to make real-world connections outside of their mobile phones and social media and real-world relationships, we have to invest in that space. The austerity years saw youth work take an absolute hammering and it was treated solely as an afterthought, to contribute to if we had a little extra, and as voluntary. It ignored how important it was for so many young people.

I thank Senator Flynn for her contribution. I think she is no longer in the Chamber. It was really important to remind us about all the people who live on the margins of society and are excluded and how youth work is a hand-up to them to bring them forward and to support them and bring them up. She spoke about equality of opportunity and that is what youth work offers so many young people in Ireland.

I thank Senators for the opportunity to be here in the Seanad today to talk about youth work and the Government's ongoing commitment and investment in this important sector.

Youth services are a safe place where young people, with the support of youth workers, are able to reach their full potential and positively shape their own lives and futures. This Government and my Department are committed to supporting youth work services, youth organisations and volunteer-led youth clubs to ensure that there are high-quality, inclusive and accessible opportunities for all young people throughout the country, including in rural areas.

This year, over €94 million in funding has been allocated for youth services current and capital expenditure in my Department. Youth work services deliver high-quality youth work and non-formal developmental opportunities to young people aged ten to 24 across Ireland each year, with approximately 450,000 having participated in 2024. The aim is to support young people to develop their personal and social skills to reach their full potential. Approximately 2,000 youth workers and 40,000 volunteers support young people in their youth services and youth clubs nationally.

I have listened carefully to the Senators here in the Seanad today and there is a lot that we agree on. Supporting our youth work is a critical aspect of what we do as a Government to support young people. Along with initiatives across a wide range of areas including education and training, health, employment, creativity and sport, and tackling poverty and disadvantage, it forms part of a broader framework that prioritises and advances young people's rights and well-being. This commitment to ensuring that young people’s needs and rights are reflected across all policy areas is a key principle of Young Ireland, the national policy framework for children and young people, under which the sectoral policy Opportunities for Youth sits.

Opportunities for Youth, the national strategy for youth work and related services, was published in September 2024. It sets out three overarching strategic objectives and 18 actions for delivery between 2025 and 2026. In partnership with the youth sector, a new set of actions will be developed for the period 2027 to 2028. The strategy was informed by extensive consultations with young people and other stakeholders, which is reflected in its scope and ambition. Since its publication, the Department and the sector have progressed the strategy's 18 actions for delivery, some of which I will speak to shortly. We acknowledge that there have been delays in the publication of an implementation plan to support the strategy. As this House is aware, the youth affairs function transferred to my Department in May 2025. Considerable work has been done to build on the existing implementation work but also to develop a plan for publication to capture this work. The Department has received significant input already from the sector on the draft plan and I intend to finalise and publish it soon. Meanwhile, the important next step is the establishment of engagement structures for Opportunities for Youth, which is advancing well and which I will return to in a moment.

A defining characteristic of the youth work sector is that services are responsive to the interests, needs and concerns of young people, and young people are involved in shaping the services they attend.

Youth workers and volunteers are highly skilled, as has been said here, in connecting with young people where they are at and in developing relationships built on mutual trust that empower young people to be confident in having their say and being, or developing into, young adults and citizens. I have been very inspired by the volunteers, youth workers and young people I have met since taking up this role and I look forward to engaging further with them. One cannot help but be struck by the extraordinary dedication of youth workers and the impressive young people engaging in the services. I also appreciate the sheer diversity of the sector, both in the range of services and offerings available to young people and the range of young people who benefit. I am also very pleased that young people and youth organisations are included at the centre of the education convention. We are progressing a workforce development strategy in recognition of the need to support the workforce and ensure they can continue to provide high-quality, accessible and inclusive youth work opportunities for our young people. I thank our youth workers and employers for the high level of participation in the workforce survey process which took place. The analysis of responses is extremely useful in informing the strategy development. Consultations are scheduled to take place in multiple locations around the country during May and June to engage further with youth workers and employers and to build on the data available through the youth workers and employers survey.

We continue to support the national youth organisations with substantial funding under the youth services grant scheme, in addition to the funding we provide to support local clubs and groups through the local youth club grant scheme. In recognition of the crucial role played by volunteers in running clubs and groups up and down the country, we are supporting national youth organisations to develop additional volunteer capacity through the volunteer activation fund. There is a need for wider recognition of youth workers and volunteers, and to celebrate what they do. Part of my Department’s response to this was the inaugural Oíche na hÓige, or Youth Night, which took place last year. This gave young people a chance to open their doors to the wider community and to showcase what their clubs and services mean to them. My Department works closely with the youth organisations, young people and the 16 education and training boards to ensure the good practice in youth work that Ireland is known for is further developed and supported. The engagement structures being established to support the implementation of the Opportunities for Youth strategy will reinforce this relationship and ensure that young people and sectoral interests will have a clear mechanism for contributing to national decision-making. The national youth sector reference group will comprise young people, youth workers, funded youth organisations and ETB representatives. The interdepartmental and interagency group will bring together those Departments and bodies that provide funding or interact with the youth sector with a view to developing a whole-of-government vision as well as improving coherence and complementarity across schemes.

Within my own Department, the transfer of youth functions into my Department opens particular opportunities for effective collaboration. We see the non-formal and formal education sectors not as stand-alone entities but as complementary areas of work that will allow us to support a child, and later a young person, throughout their life in a way that takes account of their life inside and outside of school. More specifically, youth work provides non-formal, voluntary and relationship-based learning that augments formal education by addressing the social, emotional and developmental needs of young people. I regard youth work and education as natural allies. Both of them aim to support young people's development, learning and active participation in society, albeit through different methods and spaces. Moreover, youth work is an educative process that complements the Department’s brief and ambition around social inclusion. My officials have been working to identify areas of synergy, including improving linkages in relation to, for example, DEIS schools, as evidenced in the recently published DEIS and DEIS plus plans for Traveller and Roma young people in line with the Traveller and Roma education strategy and the school completion programme, to name but a few.

In terms of financial investment, in 2026 core current funding of €90.1 million will support existing youth services and youth organisations while also enabling the expansion of both targeted and universal services for young people. This represents an increase of €4.5 million over 2025 funding levels. In addition, €4 million in capital funding will be available in 2026. This funding increase brings the overall core current and capital funding available to €94.1 million. Recently the Department published its NDP capital programme. This includes a dedicated annual allocation of €4 million in youth capital funding for each year from 2026 to 2030. Significantly, this view of the future availability of capital over the medium term provides scope to plan for more strategic capital projects and purchasing in the youth sector over the period of the programme. Ongoing increases to current funding in recent years, from €68.4 million in 2008 to €90.1 million in 2026, represent an overall growth of 31.74% and allow us to invest across an array of programmes, both universal and targeted, and to tailor our targeted supports to address areas of particular need. I am delighted that the ten new UBU services established in late 2025 will be fully operational for the calendar year 2026. I am also delighted with the success of the summer meals pilot programme that was introduced last year.

I said earlier that I agree with much of what has been said here today. I welcome that the contributions of Senators to the debate clearly demonstrate the high esteem in which the youth work sector is held. However, I will address some parts of the motion directly. As many in this House are aware, following a value for money and periodic review of youth funding programmes in 2014, a decision was taken to consolidate three existing targeted youth funding schemes, including the young people’s facilities and services fund, into a single targeted youth funding scheme. This resulted in the creation of the UBU Your Place Your Space scheme, which is the largest youth services scheme funded by the Department of Education and Youth. The UBU scheme came into operation on 1 July 2020 with the first full year of operation of the scheme in 2021. Funding provided under the UBU scheme has increased from €41.8 million in 2021 to €54.5 million in 2026, which is an increase of €12.7 million or 30.4%. This year the UBU scheme will fund 258 targeted youth services across 16 ETBs that co-ordinate delivery of funding to the UBU services in their local ETB areas. Ten new UBU services were established in 2025. Given these developments, there are no plans to re-establish the young people’s facilities and services fund. My Department will continue to work with the sector and across government to best ensure that appropriate services, facilities and spaces are available for young people. This work will be enhanced by the interdepartmental and interagency group to be set up shortly.

To focus a little on some of the specifics of Government investment, the UBU Your Place Your Space scheme, which I mentioned earlier, supports young people who are identified as marginalised, vulnerable or at risk of not flourishing. UBU provision was complemented last year by the summer holiday meals pilot programme, in line with the Government's wider commitment to end child poverty. The aim of the pilot was to provide a hot or substantial meal to young people at risk of not having access to a meal over the summer period. Over 3,200 young people availed of that scheme and plans are being made for the continuation of the pilot this year.

Other targeted youth work programmes include the targeted youth employability support initiative, which plays a vital role in equipping young people aged between 15 and 24 who are not in education, employment or training with the confidence, soft skills and practical competencies needed to progress into further education, training or employment. In terms of universal services, through the youth services grant scheme, the Department provides funding to 35 national youth organisations. This scheme funds the effective delivery by national youth organisations of quality youth services that support young people’s social and personal development. It also funds organisations such as the National Youth Council of Ireland, which provides support to the overall work of the wider youth sector. In addition, the Department provides funding to the youth sector to support the delivery of volunteer-led, universal youth work. These include the volunteer activation fund, the youth climate justice fund, Foróige’s Big Brother Big Sister mentoring programme and funding for NYCIl’s safeguarding, youth health, youth arts, and equality and intercultural programmes. The Department also provides core funding to Gaisce, the President's Award, and to Léargas to support the implementation of the youth aspect of Erasmus+.

As Senators will know, we are nearing Ireland’s tenure of the Presidency of the European Union and the EU Youth Week 2026 is taking place from 24 April to 1 May.

This is a timely moment to outline that youth policy will be a prominent feature of the forthcoming Presidency of the EU. The Department is working in partnership with the National Youth Council of Ireland and youth sector stakeholders in preparation for the Presidency. The youth affairs unit in the Department will be responsible for progressing key matters on EU youth policy during the Presidency, including chairing the working party on youth throughout the Presidency. Ireland aims to deliver an ambitious work plan on the area of EU youth policy and this will include the progression of a revised EU youth strategy and consultation with youth delegates on key issues affecting young people in Europe. The area of youth policy is considered a national competency by the EU. This means that the EU does not develop legislation in this policy area and it is for each member state to decide on how it develops and implements its youth policy.

Ireland will also host the EU youth conference and the Directors General for Youth meeting. The EU youth conference is the signature event in the EU youth dialogue process. This four-day event is the largest youth participation event in Europe and will be held in Dublin in September. Ireland's Presidency priority on youth policy will be the exploration of the theme of information and constructive dialogue with young people. This theme is youth goal 4 from the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027, and was agreed across the Presidency trio of Ireland, Greece and Lithuania. Under this theme Ireland will continue to progress two Council conclusions on supporting young people to critically evaluate information and ensuring young people in Europe have access to safe places. Through the youth conference, Ireland will play a significant role in progressing the development of the next EU youth strategy so this is a very important deliverable for Ireland. The overarching priorities for Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the EU will be published by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade later this year.

As Minister with responsibility for education and youth, I know there is no shortage of challenges facing our young people and facing the sector. There are great opportunities and vibrant and committed youth workers, volunteers and youth organisations. I assure the House I am committed to making sure the area is funded and that we work together. My door is open for ideas. I have listened to the Senators today and I thank them for their very constructive and informative contributions.

I welcome the Flemish minister for agriculture and the environment. I also welcome the Belgian ambassador. They are all guests of the Minister of State, Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan. They are very welcome and I hope the Minister of State is looking after them.

I thank all of the Senators who contributed to the debate. It was a very positive debate and we all agree on practically all of the points and the importance of youth work, as does the Minister. I commend all of the organisations involved in youth work, whether providing a club, service or project, and I commend all the staff, paid and unpaid. Voluntary workers do so much good work. I also commend the young people who participate.

The Minister mentioned Oíche na hÓige, which was very successful when it was run a few months ago. It created awareness of youth clubs and encouraged participation. Youth clubs have said they cannot deal with the increased numbers. They are genuinely under pressure. I did not bring forward this motion because they are not and because they are getting sufficient funding. They are under pressure to meet existing levels of service. There is a need for increase.

We talked about staff, and there are excellent youth workers who are working with young people but it is very difficult to recruit and retain because of the cost-of-living pressures on these workers. They are going to go into other sectors that pay better because they cannot meet their rent or the cost-of-living pressures. Many youth workers say they are under pressure because they are filling gaps left by other agencies in society. They are providing mental health supports and counselling services and they are not necessarily qualified in these areas. This brings more pressure. It is an issue for other Departments but it highlights the need for all Departments across the board to be working together in supporting our young people and supporting the workers who are working with them.

Senator McCarthy brought up quite a disturbing story about the young seven-year-old boy he spoke about. It makes us cold thinking about what some children are going through. We wonder why certain services are not picking up on this and interventions are not made. I have long argued that we should invest money in communities where there is deprivation, intergenerational poverty and trauma. Money invested there would be money well spent because we would save it at the other end when we would not have to incarcerate them, which costs an awful lot more money.

I spoke to a youth worker who works with the youth diversion programme, who said that sometimes by the time a child is referred to them and they start to work with that child they realise they also have to work with their parents and other members of the family because there are often years of trauma, including perhaps domestic violence or addiction issues. We need to start investing and youth work is vital in our societies for working with young people. We need to start investing in families and putting in supports. Our resource centres do terrific work but they are underresourced also. We need to resource all of our community supports. When there was a recession, an awful lot of this funding was cut. It is vital funding needs to be maintained, if not increased, when a recession hits and there is unemployment. It is the families who are most deprived that suffer more and the supports that were in the community go also. They really hit rock bottom.

I urge the Minister to please try to invest more in our youth services. The National Youth Council represents many organisations. It has engaged with the implementation plan and the review of the implementation plan. It has the figures done and it has a pre-budget submission ready. It has laid out that the organisations are under pressure and need more funding. It is vital work and we need to support it.

I move amendment No. 2:

After the word "acknowledges" to insert the following paragraph:

"- the need for the youth work sector to be embedded as a key partner in addressing the social, economic and structural inequalities facing young people in Ireland;"

I second the amendment.

I move amendment No. 3:

After the words "calls on the Government to" to insert the following paragraph:

"- restore youth and community work funding to pre-austerity levels, adjusted in line with inflation and population growth, and factoring in the increased cost of service delivery;".

I second the amendment.

When is it proposed to sit again?

At 9.30 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Is that agreed? Agreed.