Youth Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-25
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

I agree with the Deputy.
It is an essential part of ensuring we get youth diversion from criminal activity that we put in place facilities and services for young people. We had a very important discussion in this Chamber recently about scramblers and how young men and boys were using them, but we need to try to provide alternative avenues and opportunities for people to engage in certain types of activities of interest to them. I fully appreciate the skate park is something Ballyfermot Youth Services wants to see continue. I want to see it continue just as much as the Deputy does. I will engage with officials in my Department in respect of it.
I just want to be careful about giving false hope that this can be sorted out this year in the short term. I am going to come out to the skate park and get an update from officials in respect of what is available. We can engage with other ministerial colleagues as well to see if any other emergency funds are available for the purpose of such essential community projects as the skate park. I do have to just emphasise again the purpose of the community safety fund. It is a small fund, only €4.5 million. I am hoping to get it up even further than that this year. The fund tries to pick deserving projects around the country doing very useful work to ensure that communities are safe, particularly communities disadvantaged as a result of criminal activity. If I get into the trend of saying we have set multi-annual funding that is always going to come from the fund, the application process and the diversity of the fund will be altered. I do hear what the Deputy is saying in respect of the importance of the skate park and the psychotherapist role. I will engage with officials in my Department and continue to engage with the Deputy. I look forward very much to coming out to Ballyfermot skate park.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-25