Investment in Youth Work: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-15 ============================================================ Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel 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. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-15/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-15