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DÁIL ÉIREANN · FORMER

Louise O'Reilly

Dublin Fingal West · Sinn Féin · Ireland

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

I welcome this debate this afternoon and am happy to be able to make a small contribution to it. I grew up in a Border town. I ended up in that town because my father was a trade union organiser who represented workers on both sides of the Border for a long number of years and, in fact, went on to be based in the North for a long time.

SITTING OF 2026-07-16 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

I am fortunate enough to represent a constituency that is very firmly in the Dublin–Belfast economic corridor. Before partition, as we know, Belfast was a thriving industrial powerhouse. Partition put a lid on the potential of that city to grow and flourish.

SITTING OF 2026-07-16 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

When we talk about Irish unity, we should frame that discussion as one about potential for growth, the potential for all-Ireland working and all-Ireland business. Between Belfast and Dublin, there are five universities, numerous colleges of further education and training, and businesses that are ready to scale up.

SITTING OF 2026-07-16 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

As the debate on Irish unity advances, and it is advancing despite what some of the people opposite would like to happen, we need to frame that discussion in a positive way. We need to look clearly for those opportunities while acknowledging the challenges. We are not blind to the challenges.

SITTING OF 2026-07-16 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

If her letter does not have any impact - let us be honest; it has not had any impact - the Minister of State might outline what he will do that might go a bit further than writing a letter. We know that devices are essential. We know that parents want their kids to be able to participate.

SITTING OF 2026-07-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

I thank the Deputies for bringing forward this motion. I was chatting to my dad as I was coming in and told him I would be debating this motion in relation to supports for parents this morning. He reminded me, of course, that it was the Labour Party in government that cut those very supports.

SITTING OF 2026-07-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

The complete record

Every one of 855 lines we hold for Louise O'Reilly, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 8 of 18.

  1. There are 54,800 unemployed people, 9,400 of whom are classified as young people. When we look at the trends, we see a number of things. The reason I put this Topical Issue down was because of talking to friends, family and people in my constituency. This Christmas was a very bittersweet one for many. Young people in families were having their last Christmas at home because they are going to Australia - the Minister of State will know this - Canada, Dubai and America, although fewer and fewer are going to America. They are going to places where they think they might be able to build a life or shelter from the housing crisis and perhaps come back when, under a different Government, there might be better options. I put down this Topical Issue because when I spoke to people, I was prompted to look at the statistics.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  2. I welcome the opportunity to have this discussion with the Minister of State. You will often hear reference made to some person, group or entity being the "canary in the coalmine". I believe that young people, when it comes to unemployment, are that canary in the coalmine. Looking at the trend, the general unemployment rate increased from 4.5% in quarter 3 of 2024 to 5.3% in quarter 3 of 2025. When you delve down into that, that is where you find the canaries, if you will. For those aged 15 to 24, which is the group known as "youth", the unemployment rate stood at 14.1% in quarter 3 of 2025, which was an 11.5% increase on quarter 3 in 2024. That is almost three times higher than the national rate. Not only is the rate higher but the rate of increase is also higher.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  3. In the previous Dáil, I was worn out pleading with the then Minister for enterprise, Leo Varadkar, to intervene and help content moderators, as their jobs were being outsourced and downgraded. Content moderators are the front-line defenders when it comes to online activity. They are the people who stand between the user and the AI platform. The then Minister response was that a lot of that work would probably be done by AI in the future. Mr. Varadkar is not here but I am sure if he was, he would regret those words. We need to put safeguards in place, which will not be easy. This cannot just mean banning social media for under-16s because social media can be harmful to over-16s and over-18s. Austin Gordon, who was 22 when he died by suicide, had identification that would have enabled him to use the platforms.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  4. It is not necessarily always a force for good and there are more than two families who have real reasons to watch this and other debates as they try to make sure we get this right. We know that artificial intelligence offers huge potential but it carries with it great risk, as is the case with all new technologies. There has to be regulation. This particular form of technological endeavour might move a little faster than others, but that does not mean regulation should not be able to move fast as well. We know the EU has put a lot of store in its digital policy work. It obviously wants to be a world leader in the online space, as does Ireland because that would make us good and fair Europeans. In practice, it is going to fall to Ireland, as the place where many of these companies are based, to be the regulator.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  5. In April last year, two young men died by suicide. I am not going to put their names on the record but they are in the public domain. Both of these young men had been chatting with an AI bot at the time of their deaths. Their families say that a specific version of this artificial intelligence bot designed to be friendlier, more empathetic and encouraging had in fact encourage the deaths by suicide of these young men. These claims made by the families are being investigated. These cases serve as a lesson because AI is easy and fast, and it is becoming a tool more and more people rely on. Therefore, it will increasingly become a tool that people communicate with.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  6. I was not going to say anything but I felt moved to do so. It is interesting to hear a Government backbencher describe how people with disabilities were left devastated and feeling let down by the budget. Of course, the difference between myself and the Minister's backbench colleague is that she voted for budget and I did not. This is the very same budget that devastated and let people down. I have a simple question to the Minister. People with disabilities say the budget left them €1,400 worse off. Does the Minister accept that figure?

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  7. Any increase in energy again is the same story. It is a case of saying to carry on lads and keep increasing the energy costs. All of the people who are on low incomes are very badly exposed to these. The very last one, and the one that is raised in this question, is housing. These people are right up against it. They need help and they need it now.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  8. It would be quicker if the Minister just said, "No". Is he considering additional cost-of-living measures given that people are absolutely battered? I have read out the figures to him that show that a quarter of children are living in poverty and nearly a quarter of workers are living in poverty. If the Minister is not prepared to give the measures that will ensure that these people do not live in poverty then he should have just said, "No". I regret that the Minister does not have a better answer for me, to be brutally frank, because the cost of living in this State and the cost for people who are on low incomes, as we know, means they are very heavily exposed to any price increase, including any increase in the price of food, but the Government has refused to negotiate or rein in the large-scale supermarkets.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  9. I am sure that keeps some people happy, but the people I represent want to know whether the Minister is considering short-term measures, because they are in dire straits.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  10. Half of Dublin is on homeless HAP. I know what it is and the Minister does not need to explain it to me. The fact is that when we factor in housing costs, we see the true picture of poverty in the State. A quarter of children under 16 years of age, 26.7%, are growing up in poverty. Almost a quarter of workers, 22.3%, are living in poverty. These are very real figures. I ask the Minister to give consideration to additional cost-of-living-measures for people who are experiencing deprivation in the here and now. I am aware of homeless HAP. I talk to people every single day of the week. As I said, half of Dublin is probably on it at this stage, because all it is doing is fuelling those price increases for rent.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  11. Perhaps in a normal economy where the Government had not crashed the housing market repeatedly into a wall, leaving out housing figures might give an accurate picture, but it does not, because when we take housing into consideration, we actually see the true rate of poverty and the fact that Social Justice Ireland, the ESRI and others pointed out that the increases in the last budget did not do anything other than impose austerity on people and do not keep pace with the rising costs.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  12. The Minister mentioned the rate of inflation and did not mention the rate of housing inflation, the cost of housing. That was specifically mentioned in the question. The cost of housing in this State is rising and has risen every single year, whether people are renting or are struggling to buy. After housing costs, 40% of renters live on an income below the poverty line. That is 43% for local authority tenants. It is almost 60% for those on HAP, RAS or rent supplement, who are living below the poverty line when we take it into account. The Minister is not getting the full picture if he is not taking into account the cost of housing.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  13. As the Minister will know, and as a direct result of Government policy, the housing situation in this State is - what is the word we are using now? Is it "crisis"? "Emergency"? "Disaster"? Any of those would be used, but "expensive" and, in many instances, "unaffordable" are the words people will most use. My question relates to additional cost-of-living measures. Has the Minister given any consideration to such measures, given the rate of housing costs in the State?

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  14. I would prefer that money to be managed by the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, and invested in other ways, but the decision was taken and we need to deal with the reality. I will keep in touch with the Minister as people get in touch with me.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  15. I record my concern with regard to Tata Consultancy Services. I have put this on the record previously. I am not massively impressed with the Minister’s defence of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund - that if it is good enough for Norway, it should be good enough for us. We should paddle our own canoe on this and the Minister should do his own research. I do not think the State should be doing business with companies that have a significant presence in the occupied territories, and I do not think the Minister does either. The Minister said he will continue his engagement and I welcome that. I undertake to forward to him any concerns brought to my attention because I, like him, want to make sure people are catered for in their retirement.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  16. They also want to be able to provide the services, and a lot of them said they had difficulty with Departments. I welcome that the Minister is engaging. I ask him to have another round of engagements.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  17. The Minister deftly avoided answering that question. If the choice for the chief executive is that he has to put money into the pension or cut back on services, what decision does the Minister want him to make? Between 70,000 and 80,000 people are currently not covered, but the 92% figure is certainly evidence that people have heard about auto-enrolment and are signing up. I still have a concern because I know this happened previously. I welcome that the Minister has had engagements across Departments, but I ask him to redouble his efforts to ensure that at accounting time at the end of year, there is not going to be an unfortunate cliff for people. There is genuine concern. To be clear, I do not often stand up for management in here but the senior people in funded organisations who came to me want their workers to be in a pension scheme.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  18. This again is a straightforward question. I am interested in the numbers of people who have been signed up for auto-enrolment, and also any engagements the Department or Minister may have had with agencies. I submitted this question because I was contacted by senior managers in funded agencies who had a concern that their funding was not increased but their obligation had increased. One of them cheekily said I could ask that if they had to make a choice between services and pension, where the Minister would want them to make that cut.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  19. These are bills they will have to pay at some point. While those who are not on prepay meters might not be disconnected, they will still have to find the money to pay for those. It is very clear that the increased supports that were given are not adequate. They do not keep pace with inflation and they certainly do not keep pace with the rising cost of energy.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  20. Any changes, temporary or otherwise, might be welcome, but the withdrawal of energy credits is causing real and genuine hardship for people. I see it in my clinics. I am sure the Minister does as well. He mentioned the energy affordability task force, but that is only a continuation of the other task force. It is a little bit "Father Ted" - is there anything to be said for another mass - that there is another task force or group. In truth, the number of people who are in energy poverty and in arrears with their energy bills is going up. It is going up simply because the supports that are there are not keeping pace. We know that the energy credits made a real and material difference in people's lives and to the number of people who were in arrears. The withdrawal of those credits has pushed people into arrears.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  21. I asked whether the Minister had quantified the material impact of the fact that children are going to bed hungry and people with disabilities, as they told us yesterday in the audiovisual room, have to make the choice between being able to heat their homes and power their mobility devices or being able to eat. Those are the questions I want to ask. Has the actual impact been quantified?

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  22. That is very regrettable. As the Minister very well knows, Social Justice Ireland described the Government's most recent budget as a recipe for austerity. It was made clear to the Government at that stage, not just by me and Social Justice Ireland but by others, that the value of the fuel allowance needed to increase in line with the cost of energy. We know that we pay, for reasons that are entirely of the Government's making, some of the highest energy costs in the European Union. We do not have some of the highest energy supports, however, in the European Union. There are 300,000 households in arrears at the moment. The policy of no disconnection during winter is very welcome but it does not take account of people on prepay meters who experience a "micro-disconnection".

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  23. In keeping with my form, the question is fairly straightforward. I am curious to know whether the Minister has quantified the material impact of the withdrawal of energy credits. In real terms, the value of the fuel allowance has decreased because of the increase in energy prices. That is simple maths; the Minister will know that. Has he quantified, for his own information, the actual impact and lived reality for people?

    SITTING OF 2026-01-15 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  24. I do not need to remind the Taoiseach about the massive issues people are having with the platform X, formerly known as Twitter. It is an absolute cesspit. More and more people are leaving the platform. In fact, I would be inclined to leave the platform myself were it not for the fact that I am a commuter who regularly uses the northern commuter line. Irish Rail continues to give its updates only via X, not on its website or on any other platform. There is no dedicated WhatsApp channel or anything like that. As recently as yesterday evening, it confirmed that it has no plans to move off the platform X. I have been contacted by my constituents in quite large numbers to say that they want to leave X but cannot because they simply have to have it to be able to access real-time information about disruptions.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-14 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  25. I do not doubt the usefulness of vapes in getting people off cigarettes but some people have switched their addiction to cigarettes to an addiction to vaping. I know a person who is addicted to nicotine chewing gum. Nicotine is a highly addictive substance and the people who finance nicotine addiction are moving much faster than the Government. They are flying ahead. For young people now, it is less about vapes and more about nicotine pouches. I welcome the Bill. It is important to recognise that this is a small step in the right direction. If we are going to ensure that we move quickly in the direction of becoming nicotine free, we need to look at resourcing youth work, resourcing and equipping teachers and making sure that children and young and older people are getting the message at every available opportunity.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-13 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  26. One could buy a single cigarette, or two or three, for 10p each, depending on how much money one had. That is why the Bill is important. I will not allow the Government to overstate the importance of the Bill because it knows what else it should be doing. It is a small step but an important one. It is a move that will be welcomed by every tidy towns organisation the length and breadth of the State because they are tortured by single use vapes. It behoves us, as legislators, to do anything we can to ensure that people do not end up addicted to nicotine. It is a highly addictive substance and we need to keep it away from kids. If we can keep it away from kids and foster a positive environment, we will be on the road to being nicotine free, which is a good step to take.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-13 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  27. On 2 January, I very happily celebrated 19 years without cigarettes. I did not vape; I do not think there were any vapes at that stage. If there were, they were very new. I was lucky and did not use chewing gum. I relied heavily on licorice all sorts, crisps and anything else I could get my hands on. The important thing is that I managed. Regrettably, I smoked my first cigarette - if my mother was alive she would burst me - when I was 11 years of age, nearly 12, which was not good. I was a very committed and dedicated smoker for a long number of years. One of the things that facilitated me being able to smoke at the young age I was was access to single cigarettes. One could buy a single cigarette. Anyone under the age of 45 listening to this debate would be tearing their hair out but it is true. It was possible and was done.

    SITTING OF 2026-01-13 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  28. It is debt built up by people who cannot afford to pay out of their own pocket for a service that the State is legally mandated to provide for their kids. They are getting themselves into debt for a service that they have a lawful entitlement to. That is a fairly damning indictment. I appreciate the Minister of State is not long in the job but her party has been more than 14 years in government. The evidence of kids being failed, specifically the 1,841 in north Dublin, is all around us. I have already outlined teachers' serious concerns over what was in the Government's press statement. Teachers in this area, with the interests of the kids at heart, do not trust that what the Government is saying will work. There is no clarity there and I hope the Minister of State will be able to put some clarity on it.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  29. I suppose the Minister of State's recognition of the scale of the problem is welcome. I know she was not making a massive deal out of it, but going from 1,893 to 1,841 is nothing to be proud of really. She should probably be a bit mortified. That figure of 1,841 children in my area represents families that are just left waiting. They feel very much abandoned. On the establishment of 11 new teams, the Minister of State might indicate in her second reply how many additional staff that will provide. Will they be joined up with the children's disability network teams, CDNTs? Will they be joined up with community healthcare organisations, CHOs, local health offices, LHOs, and the network? Will they be a stand-alone network of their own? She might explain to me how that will work. She might address the use of BNPL offers.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  30. Then they find themselves in debt but they still have to keep paying for therapies. The Minister of State might acquaint herself with this buy-now-pay-later, BNPL, service because I fully intend to raise this every single time. It is disgusting that people would be forced to get into debt for what their children have a legal entitlement to. These companies have the neck to advertise this stuff because they know how desperate parents are. They know that parents desperately need these assessments for their kids. This BNPL service is evidence of a failure on the part of the Government.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  31. A national average of 10% is an absolute disgrace but 3% is even worse. I represent the youngest town in Ireland. If ever there was a need for additional resources to be targeted, it would be in my area. Parents watch their kids wait and wait for assessments of need. If the Minister of State wants an estimation of just how bad things are, it was reported in The Times Ireland weekend edition that there is now a buy-now-pay-later service being offered for therapies. I have spoken to parents who are so desperate to get the assessments of need for their kids that they will actually go private when they do not have the money. It is grand for those who are loaded, but most people are not. They might borrow from a family member, get a credit union loan or do a few shifts of overtime if there are any going, but very often, there are not.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  32. There are real concerns. I received a deluge of lobbying before I came down here. They have a simple request. They want the Minister to publish in full the proposed criteria and decision-making process. They want clarity on the future status of special education designations. They want this paused to facilitate the discussions, which I feel are important. This Topical Issue specifically relates to my area, but my area is part of the wider picture. I represent one of the youngest and most rapidly expanding areas of Dublin, but the children in my area who require an assessment of need appear to be left waiting. I think they are the longest waiters in the State - 3% of children in Fingal received an assessment of need within the legal minimum timeframe compared with a national average of 10%.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  33. It would be remiss of me not to raise the volume of representations I have received, even in the past two or three hours, on what is being referred to as the Government's decision, quietly embedded in a press release, on the AON process. They come from teachers, people working in the area of special education and, crucially, parents. They say diagnosis matters. It is not a bureaucratic hurdle. It provides children with an understanding of their own identity, strengths and challenges and it equips teachers to provide informed and effective supports. They want to know who will conduct these educational assessments. Will teachers be expected to take this on? What training, what capacity and what safeguards will exist? How can educational assessment conducted without diagnostic expertise determine appropriate placement in complex cases?

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  34. Before I raise my issue, I wish the Ceann Comhaire and her team, including Jill Gray, and every person who works in the Oireachtas a happy Christmas. We are incredibly well looked after. Sometimes it is a bit lost on us how well served we are. This is a very decent place to work because of the men and women who keep it going. I hope everybody gets a chance to spend a bit of quality time with their family, because they have all more than earned it. I hope the Ceann Comhairle gets a rest. It has indeed been a very busy year. I thank the Minister of State for being here to take my topical issue, which relates to the length of time children in my constituency, in particular, must wait for an assessment of need, AON.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  35. They also worry that this is intended by the Government as some sort of distraction, that people should look over there and forget that out of the most recent recruitment to An Garda Síochána, north County Dublin got one additional garda. They worry I am being told to look at the body cameras and not at the fact that my area is about 40 gardaí down from the number it had in 2020, while the population has increased. I have written to the Minister about this in the past and I will write to him again. I will take Rush as an example. The Garda station there was closed. Since then, the population has risen by 20%. The Garda station is now open for two hours per week. It is not adequate and no amount of technology will make up for the front-line policing that is necessary.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  36. Therefore, I urge him to be very cautious and listen carefully to the concerns of such organisations as the Irish Network Against Racism, INAR, and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL. They have seen and know, from international examples, the potential pitfalls and we need to be careful and aware of those. I have spoken to constituents about this, because people have questions and will ask about the body cameras and what it means. I will tell the Minister straight. There are concerns. People have approached me and expressed concerns about the international experience. It does not mean, because people got it wrong internationally, that we necessarily have to get it wrong nationally, but people are very concerned.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  37. I put on record, as I did at that time, my commendation of those members of An Garda Síochána who are putting their hearts and souls into community policing and really trying to get this right. There are some members, plenty of them, who go above and beyond, but the report tells us there is a problem. There are already concerns about racial profiling right here right now and those concerns have been outlined, but this could potentially be made much worse, as suggested by international evidence, by the use of recording devices by An Garda Síochána. There is a real need to be cautious and to listen to evidence because the Minister's direction of travel is clear. Whether he says it outright or not, it can be seen what way he intends to bring this.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  38. When I spoke on this matter in the House previously I drew the Minister's attention to the Irish Network Against Racism study that had been published at the time. It found: "...survey participants described traumatic experiences while being stopped by members of the Garda Síochána, including strip searches, property damage, and wrongful arrests, some of which had long-lasting psychological impacts." Rural and Dublin-based groups spoke of concerns about racial profiling and disproportionate stopping of young black men by police. Both groups shared examples. The Minister will know the report, which shared a lot of examples. Every single word of this report is echoed by the experience and evidence from my constituency.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  39. I have a Topical Issue matter later so I am not being the Grinch if I do not say happy Christmas to everyone. It would feel a bit silly to do it twice. I absolutely agree with the Minister who has said many times that gardaí need to be properly equipped and need adequate resources. We need them to be adequately equipped and resourced so they can do the very important work we need them to do. As was outlined, we are not opposed to the use of this technology per se or to the use of bodycams but it has to be in the right context and it has to be with an eye at all times to the potential human rights concerns the Minister is more than well aware of. They cause concerns and cause them in some communities more than others. We know this. Deputy Ward has outlined some of those concerns.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-18 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  40. Basic patient safety means that they must have access to blister packs or else they must have access to somebody who will help them to take their medication, but the latter robs them of their independence. As they get older, people with disabilities will say that their world becomes very small as they become more and more dependent and as society disables them. This will further increase their loss of independence. I welcome that the Minister is not opposing this motion but, to be very clear, the decent thing to do is to support it and to work with the Opposition to find a solution.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-16 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  41. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, the very least - and I mean the rock-bottom, bare minimum - that anyone could expect from a government of any decency is that it would not make things worse. A total of 21% of households that have one or more members with a disability are materially deprived. Some 20% of those are in poverty. Some 16% of people over 65 are in poverty. The extra €20, €30, €40 or €50 per month is therefore not nothing; it is massively significant to people who have already been pushed into poverty by the decisions of this Government. As my colleagues have outlined, these blister packs are an essential organisational tool for people who are trying to manage their medication but who have difficulty doing so.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-16 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  42. 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.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-11 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  43. 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.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-11 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  44. 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.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-11 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  45. Amanda needs to know, when she starts the UBU programme, that she is going to be able to run it again and keep running it. That requires a dedicated funding stream. Will the Minister of State please ask the Minister, Deputy Naughton, to come to Balbriggan and visit Foróige? There is a new place going to be opening in Castlelands Community Centre, but if she could visit the existing premises, meet some of the young people and see the good work is being done, that would inform her work a bit better.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-11 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  46. They get lectured eight days a week by people like me and, with no disrespect to the Minister of State, like him about spending too much time on screens, but if we are not giving them a viable option, what other choice do they have? I recently had two graduates of the Leadership for Life programme run by Foróige doing work experience in my office and they blew me away. When I spoke to them, a lot of the confidence they had and the capacity to come into a place like this to spend a couple of days working came from the input from the people in Foróige. I am concerned that, in a town like Balbriggan, Foróige workers needs permanent places to be. They need multi-annual funding and they need to know when they start a programme, like the UBU programme that they can keep running it.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-11 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  47. That is 100 to 150 young people who need services and support who will not now be in a position to get it. The funding for youth work in Dublin is barely meeting the baseline for existing levels of service. When you have a growing population, even maintaining existing levels of service means you are going to fall behind. The Government is not even doing that. That issue about underfunding for youth work is more acutely felt in towns like Balbriggan where we have a large population of young people. Looking at the NDP, we see that youth services could, at the very best, be described as the poor relation. We say on the one hand that we do not want young people hanging around. If they hang around too much we tell them that is causing antisocial behaviour.

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  48. What they say they need and what they want are safe spaces, places where they can be and hang out. Not every young person plays sport. There is not always something but they do not want to hang around either. They want to have somewhere to be where they can be safe and where they can hang out. I was in Foróige in Balbriggan recently for Oíche na hÓige and I spoke to Aisling O'Connell, Antoinette Kelly and Amanda Cullen about the work they are doing. I am a big fan of the work done by Foróige workers, as I sure the Minister of State is himself. I have seen what they do and the real difference they make in people's lives. I cannot understand why, in the youngest town in Ireland, funding for youth work and youth services is going entirely in the wrong direction. For example, we recently lost three youth workers.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-11 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT

  49. I thank the Minister of State for being here. This is not meant disrespectfully to him but I regret that the senior Minister is not here. This is a practice that I do not think is brilliant. Again, I thank the Minister of State for being here but it is not good practice for senior Ministers to never be in the House to take their Topical Issues, which frequently is my experience. Some 33% of the population of Balbriggan is aged 17 years or under. We call it the youngest town in Ireland because the facts back us up. It is a town that is blessed, and I want to say blessed, with a very vibrant, young population. A report was conducted recently on the spaces and youth services in Balbriggan and young people themselves had an opportunity to tell us what they were thinking and what they needed.

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  50. The loss of The Complex would be absolutely devastating. I am asking the Minister to make this vital funding available to save this unique arts space that has really positively served the community for almost two decades. I ask him to commit to working with the management of The Complex and the community to save this really vital piece of arts infrastructure.

    SITTING OF 2025-12-11 · READ THE OFFICIAL REPORT