Youth Services
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Louise O'Reilly (SF), Dublin Fingal West

The Minister of State certainly can consider himself invited to Balbriggan. I would absolutely love to show him around and to show off. There is nothing we like more than showing off the good things in our constituency. This is a good thing in my constituency and I would like to show it off.
The Minister of State mentioned the numbers in his response and I can see those figures on the page in front of me. However, they do not match up with the growing need in the area. The Government says it wants young people to be able to access the services and all the rest of it but I do not know how it reconciles that with Balbriggan’s loss of three youth workers. That means 100 to 150 young people who need support will not get it.
The Minister of State referred to the UBU Your Place Your Space scheme, which is absolutely fantastic and does exactly what it says on the tin. It helps young people who are marginalised or vulnerable and at risk of not flourishing. That is a great phrase. That is the problem: these young people are at risk of not flourishing without this intervention.
I recently visited Remember Us and Foróige and heard from the young people there exactly how valuable the services are to them, how much they need and appreciate them and how much more could be done with more investment. That is the key here. We must ensure there are safe permanent spaces where young people can access services. We must ensure youth workers are properly funded. We also must ensure things like auto-enrolment are catered for in the funding because that is a right those workers have as much as everybody else. While I absolutely welcome the money that has been given to date, there is a growing need and the budget must grow with that need.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11