Deputy Ciarán Murphy has given me notice of his intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of Question No. 84, which appeared on the Order Paper of 18th July, 1974.
Committee on Finance. - Adjournment Debate: Dublin Youth Services.
I should like to thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for giving me the opportunity of raising this important issue. I should also like to commend the Dublin Deputies for tabling this question.
My own position is one of a Deputy in a constituency bordering on the Dublin area, one who has been engaged in youth activities for many years, who was hoping to see the extension and development of the work of Comhairle le Leas Óige to augment the work of the various voluntary groups which are already operating for the benefit of our youth in various towns and villages, to see this work and the function of Comhairle le Leas Óige spill over into neighbouring constituencies and to each part of this country.
It was with regret then that I heard the Parliamentary Secretary's reply to this question. I note the regression which has taken place in the city of Dublin. I am disappointed with the Parliamentary Secretary's reply. With your permission, I should like to hand over to one of the Deputies who tabled this question—Deputy Tunney.
On behalf of the Deputies who are interested in this matter I should like to thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for having done us the honour of allowing it to be discussed here tonight. I am mindful of the manner in which yourself and our officers and the staff here have been taxed over the last 36 hours. I hope it will be accepted as an indication of my interest in this matter and of my dissatisfaction with the manner in which the Parliamentary Secretary dealt with the questions posed to him in relation to Comhairle le Leas Óige and youth problems generally in the city of Dublin, more especially the manner in which he dealt with what I know to be the true facts. A system had been built slowly but surely since 1941 when the Department of Education invited the Dublin City Vocational Education Committee to co-operate with them in organising a system for the welfare of what could then be regarded as the deprived youth of Dublin. From 1942 onwards Comhairle le Leas Óige, with the co-operation of the Department and working admittedly under certain impediments relating to the Vocational Education Act of 1930 had succeeded, I suggest, in bringing to it commendation, respect and results which should have been and were the envy of other counties, of other areas, of other institutions.
Submissions were made by Comhairle le Leas Óige to the Department. I refer specifically to those made in 1968, which were accepted, that having regard to the new needs existing An Comhairle should be assisted towards extending its services to the youth of Dublin. The Department readily agreed and efforts were made and indeed moves took place towards accommodating the new need that existed in respect of the youth of Dublin.
I appreciate the limitations that are on us in the matter of time and other Deputies wish to speak. Therefore, I must jump rather quickly and say that the position in September, 1973, in respect of officers attending on this service was that there were 12 youth officers engaged in what was regarded as unattached work. Of those, seven were described as community youth officers and five unattached operating in the central city area. That was the position in September, 1973. The position now at the end of July, 1974, is that there will be a total of five community youth officers operating with no unattached officer in the central city area.
In the light of this tragic development questions were put to the Parliamentary Secretary. The Parliamentary Secretary gave a reply of many words cloaking up his inactivity and, worse still, accusing the Deputies who tabled the questions of being removed from the truth. He began his answer to the questions by saying:
It is not helpful to the work of many active organisations to suggest that there has been a breakdown of the youth services in Dublin.
I know there is a big gap between the lush pastures of County Meath, the lavish comforts of County Meath, and the frugal basements, perhaps, of Dublin city, but I am surprised that any Parliamentary Secretary should come in here and having regard to the facts that were available to him, should do the youth of Dublin a disservice to the extent that he would deny that a structure which had been created to serve them as best it could and which now because of the inefficiency, the disregard and the lack of interest of the present Parliamentary Secretary, is collapsing, that he should come in here and deceive this House by indicating that it was not so and that if it was, it was happening because he was preparing a general national service. To me, and I say this with no apology to any rural Deputy, there is nothing in Ireland as national as the city of Dublin and unless we realise that there are more youths in Dublin than in any village or indeed in any county elsewhere, we are not facing the facts. If we are not prepared to accept, having regard to the density of the population and other social and economic matters, that the youth of Dublin are more in need and more deserving of this service then we are not speaking the truth.
The fact of the matter is, notwithstanding appeals made to the Parliamentary Secretary since he took office, he is allowing this Comhairle le Leas Óige service, which as I said has been in existence for practically a quarter of a century, die. I do not have to delay the House by indicating the trouble that exists in the city of Dublin at the moment in respect of our unattended, deprived and underprivileged youth.
Perhaps he anticipates in this Government which changes from day to day and which, as I said yesterday, one never knows what one should call them, he will not be the holder of the office next week and does not feel compelled to act responsibly towards the youth of Dublin. That is not an attitude befitting his office. We cannot tolerate that.
As Deputy Wilson is to follow me I will be very brief. I accuse the Parliamentary Secretary of complete indifference to the problems of youth in the centre city area of Dublin and throughout this city generally. His excuse for not taking action has been that he is devising a youth policy. He has been doing this for the past 18 months and in the meantime the service has been allowed to run down. There is nobody in youth work attending to the unattached youth in Dublin.
The Parliamentary Secretary refers to youth organisations who are carrying on the service at the moment and states that the youth service has not broken down. It has broken down in several respects. The work that was done in the centre city area was very valuable. A consultant psychiatrist from the Eastern Health Board told me that the work these unattached youth officers were doing complemented the work they are doing at the special centre in Usher's Island.
I want to give the House some figures in relation to the number of people, particularly in relation to drug abuse, who were attending the Westmoreland Street office which Comhairle le Leas Óige operated. Between October, 1973, and February, 1974, 120 people visited. The total number of visits of these people was 1,006. The average daily attendance was 25. The total number of unattached youth contacted and helped in the centre of the city over that part of the year was over 300. These are the youth who do not belong to youth clubs. Those who are lucky enough to be in youth clubs have some place but the people I refer to have nobody to look after them.
The Parliamentary Secretary has allowed the service to deteriorate. He quotes figures in relation to the number of youth officers still employed by Comhairle le Leas Óige but counts the people who are in the headquarters, who do not go out and work in the community, as part of these figures. The total number of areas covered in 1973 in the city by unattached workers was seven. Those are now down to three. Places like Finglas had two unattached youth officers, now they have none. Sheriff Street had an unattached youth officer and now they have none. There was a suicide recently in Ballymun of one of these young people who had been looked after by these youth officers. There have been other attempted suicides. These people need help now and the Parliamentary Secretary must act immediately to give these people the kind of conditions they have been looking for. The staff and the committee of Comhairle le Leas Óige have been making representations to the Parliamentary Secretary's Department and every time they are pushed aside and told that this will be considered in an overall youth policy.
The Parliamentary Secretary says that Dublin cannot be considered in isolation from the rest of the country. This indicates to me a lack of awareness of the problems in Dublin. He knows the work these people are doing because I have explained it to him many times but he has allowed this situation to continue. These Comhairle le Leas Óige fulltime officers emphasise the need for voluntary youth officers and we have to point out that we need young men specialised in dealing with people with very special problems and failure to deal with these can create an explosive situation in this city.
I do not claim to be the wisest person in the world but I am not the biggest duffer either. I must confess when the Parliamentary Secretary spoke about this the last time I accepted what he said and I believed him. I do not believe it now and I do not want him to get up and tell me how much more money he is spending this year than last year. I do not want him to tell me he is developing a policy. I want him to tell me how many trained social workers are operating unattached in the centre city area? If there are none let him not tell me that Comhairle le Leas Óige are responsible because they decided to discontinue. Why did they decide to discontinue?
They did so because the Parliamentary Secretary has fallen down on his job. He has not provided them with a proper career structure. He is asleep or he cannot get the money out of the Government. They have money for everything. Let him go and kick the door and say he is not leaving until the Government supply him with money to get this youth service going properly.
I am not asking for an improvement on what was there. I am asking for a return to what was there. At the moment the service has fallen on its face and there is nobody responsible —certainly not An Comhairle le Leas Óige—but the Parliamentary Secretary. I do not like speaking hard words. The brief looks all right but when one knows the facts about the unattached work in the centre of this city one must get angry, even when tired.
Let the Parliamentary Secretary get the career structure going; let him fix the salary structure; let him employ people. Deputy Tunney and Deputy Briscoe outlined the dangers of not having these people. One of the features in the last seven or eight years from Tokyo to Berlin has been that young people have been particularly interested in social studies because their interest in their fellow human beings has been aroused. They want to help. Let not red tape or bureaucracy stop them from doing the job. Do not let any delay stop them from doing their job in this city.
The Deputy's time is up.
I shall be finished in a minute. Do not tell me what is being done in clubs. I am talking about people who are removed from the clubs, the councillors and the help of the home. Tell me about the unattached people. Let the Parliamentary Secretary tell me what he is doing for them.
First of all, there has been no breakdown in the youth services in Dublin.
The unattached youth services.
I must intervene at this stage and say: No interruptions. Four Members spoke without interruption and the Parliamentary Secretary has less than ten minutes, so, no interruptions.
We are discussing on the Adjournment Question No. 84 of last Thursday which refers, in the words presumably advisedly chosen by Deputy Briscoe and Deputy Tunney, to "the breakdown of the youth services in Dublin". That suggestion is not true and it is unworthy of the Deputies who made it. In fact it was a suggestion which was repeated in some of the newspapers and which induced one of the most prominent people in youth work in Dublin, Father Fitzpatrick of the Catholic Youth Council, to write to the papers specifically to nail the lie that there had been a breakdown. He considered that because of the work he was doing this suggestion which has been repeated twice by the Deputies opposite——
You are hiding behind red tape.
I am dealing with Question No. 84 on Thursday's Order Paper.
(Interruptions.)
Deputies must restrain themselves. I appeal to the Deputies' sense of fair play. They had 20 minutes to make their case. Four of them utilised the time.
That suggestion was unhelpful and damaging to the work of his organisation. He wrote that letter before I gave my reply. The fact is that certain youth workers, of their own volition, resigned their posts. That choice was made by them independently and not at the suggestion of the Department.
Why? That is the kernel of the matter.
Deputies should allow the Parliamentary Secretary to make his statement in his own way.
They resigned because he would not pay them.
Do the Deputies want to listen to the reply or not? I pointed out in my reply that the terms of service of these youth workers which they accepted when they took up employment, and which were equivalent to those of temporary whole-time teachers' had been abided by, as was contracted. In addition, they had obtained increments, degree allowances and higher diploma allowances. If, after that, they decided to resign it was their decision, not mine.
What did you do to replace them?
We must realise what they are now seeking. Deputies opposite studiously avoided mentioning specifically what is being sought by the workers. What is being sought is permanency and a completely new salary scale. I should like to explain why it is not possible at this time to concede these requests.
Let the kids go to hell.
Those appointed as permanent officers on any body within the ambit of a vocational education committee or anywhere in the public service would be appointed on the basis of specific and clearly understood terms of employment, because they are going to stay in those posts. The posts must be clearly useful, relevant and related to the work required to be done. The role of full-time youth workers and how it is defined is central to a youth policy and can only be properly decided in the context of an overall youth policy which relates to their work. It should be pointed out that if they are in permanent posts it is not easy to move them to other employment within the VEC because most of them have not teaching qualifications. The comhairle is a subsidiary of the VEC and therefore the creation of permanent posts is, in this case, an even more tying determination.
At a time when we are at a very active stage in considering youth policy it would be premature to create permanent posts. In regard to the new salary scale which is being sought and which is not related to anything within the ambit of the Vocational Education Committee I would point out that to concede this would create difficulties in relation to relativities for other people employed in the VEC to whom these people up to now had been equivalent. Also, it would probably create relativity problems elsewhere in the public service.
It may be necessary to do that but, if one were to do it, one would have to be able to argue very cogently to show that the work is relevant, properly supervised and that it requires to be paid for at the rates suggested. That could be done in the context of an overall youth policy. I do not believe it would be right or proper to establish a precedent in Dublin which would ultimately have to be followed in other parts of the country. Some Dublin Deputies may think Dublin is Ireland but it is not. I have received deputations from people in Cork who referred to the comhairle situation and specifically sought to have the same situation duplicated in Cork. They may have a good case for this but if it is to be conceded then one is establishing a national policy. If one establishes a precedent in Dublin one must recognise that is what one is doing, establishing a national policy. I am adopting the right course of action because I want to get a proper policy and when that is established——
How long will it take?
You are saying that for a long time.
You were 16 years in office and you never produced one.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Wilson, I do not think we should adopt such a belligerent approach to this matter. It is not proper, especially in a limited debate of this kind. Please allow the Parliamentary Secretary to utilise the few minutes left to him with good grace.
There are priorities which must be established in youth work. Employing people involves money which must be found. Possibly other forms of youth work might be more relevant to the problem and posibly it might be so argued. Comhairle le Leas Óige, in this nine-month year, is getting the annual equivalent of £150,000 which contrasts rather favourably with the total of about £100,000 which is what is being made available to all the voluntary organisations, Macra na Tuaithe, the Catholic Youth Council, the National Youth Council and so on. If one is to establish proper priorities in regard to the allocation of the money available one can only do so in the context of a national policy. I will not be deflected from being fair to all the different approaches to youth work and all the bodies which have good claims to make and I will ensure that they are considered in a comprehensive way in the context of a comprehensive policy. That is the only way it can be done and, despite the barracking of the Opposition and attempted blackmail by individuals, that is the way I am going to do it.
(Interruptions.)
The time you are taking to establish a national policy is the longest in history.
If Fianna Fáil were trying to establish a national policy on anything they would have employed McKinsey who might come back with a consultant's report in about two years' time. Alternatively, they would set up a commission which would take four years to report and the Government would sit on the report for another four years. I am undertaking this work myself and taking political responsibility for any delays that may occur, not trying to hive it off to anybody else or make excuses. I am prepared to face Opposition barracking because I am doing the job that I believe to be right and which I was put here by the Taoiseach to do. That is the job I am going to do.
When will you have the policy?
Let the barracking cease.
I believe it is essential to have a comprehensive policy——
(Interruptions.)
A long-playing record.
I should like to point out that the decision to restrict unattached youth work was not made by this Department nor at the suggestion of this Department but by Comhairle le Leas Óige itself. The workers' decision to resign was made by themselves. The centre in Bewleys was closed and by decision of the comhairle was not replaced. They made that decision on their own assessment of the situation of which they gave us further information only early this month. It was not a decision of this Department and it is unworthy of Deputies opposite to suggest that it was. Unattached youth work must get very careful attention.
The time has now expired for this debate.
I do not think it is fair to me; I have a good deal more to say.
I am sorry. The Chair cannot allow the debate to continue. Under Standing Orders I must close it at 11 o'clock.
It does not seem fair to me that——
The Chair endeavours to secure the best possible order for the debate. It is not the fault of the Chair.
I accept that.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 26th July, 1974.