Deputy De Rossa has sought and obtained permission to raise on the Adjournment the decision of the Government to withdraw funding from the development officers scheme for the employment of full-time youth workers as this will lead to the laying off of more than 50 full-time youth workers. Deputy De Rossa has 20 minutes.
Adjournment Debate. - Youth Development Officers.
With the permission of the Chair I propose to give Deputy O'Rourke some time to come in on the debate.
That is a matter between Deputy De Rossa and Deputy O'Rourke.
I wish to thank the Ceann Comhairle for giving me this opportunity to raise this very important topic. Given that something like 50 per cent of our population are under 25 years of age, the whole question of youth work and the funding of youth work is very important.
I should like to start my contribution by quoting the Taoiseach on 15 September 1983 when he spoke at a reception to launch a national youth policy committee. He said we saw the development of our young people as a pivotal element of our response and are concerned with assisting young people to become more self-reliant, more responsible and more active participants in society. I would argue that the decision by the Government to cut back on the youth development officer scheme is a direct contradiction of the sentiments expressed by the Taoiseach on that occasion. It is nothing short of ridiculous to express those sentiments when, at the same time, he is proposing to reduce the number of full-time youth workers by almost 50 per cent.
A decision by the Government to withdraw funding from the development officers scheme for the employment of full-time youth workers is an act of incredible stupidity, given the long-term effects it could have on the whole question of youth work. In the long term, the money saved will be far outweighed by the cost in social terms. I understand that the inevitable result of the Government's decision will be that over 50 of the approximately 100 full-time youth officers will be laid off. Clearly this will be a catastrophic blow to the youth services which have built up over the past ten years and will have a seriously demoralising effect on the thousands of voluntary youth workers who devote so much of their time and energy in this field.
The financial commitment of successive Governments to youth services has been totally inadequate. That holds true not only for this Government but for Governments going back many years. To draw a comparison with Northern Ireland, with a much smaller youth population they spend in the region of £8 million on youth services compared with £1.6 million in this State. Already we are the poor man of Europe so far as financial commitment to young people is concerned. If the Government halve the number of full-time youth workers, we will be right back to where we started four to five years ago.
The amount of money involved in the development officers scheme is quite small in the context of overall Government expenditure. While under the scheme the Government had been paying approximately £7,000 in salary to each youth worker — and to give the Minister of State his due he increased it from 1 January of this year from £5,000 — it has also been necessary for the youth organisations for which these officers were working to provide another £5,000 to £7,000 in back-up services, travel facilities, office facilities and so forth.
In the past 12 months we have got used to the idea of the Government cutting first and thinking afterwards. In this situation the consequences of that kind of approach can only be described as appalling. To date Government policy has caused unemployment at an unprecedented level. It has to be said that not only are the present Government responsible for that, but they have the power at the moment and, if they are not prepared to give young people jobs, the least they can do is to provide finance for adequate recreational and personal development purposes.
The whole idea of youth work is an educational process. It is not just a question of trying to keep kids off the street and out of trouble. It is not simply a question of trying to reduce the level of vandalism or the level of stealing of cars, and so on. It has a very positive educational developmental role for young people. Through the programmes of youth work organisations young people are helped to develop as mature, responsible and involved members of society. Through youth clubs they learn a wide range of social and life skills, develop self-confidence, the skill of reflection experience and the experience of adults as individuals who are prepared to help them in a friendly and supportive way.
In Ireland youth work depends to a very large degree on voluntary effort. Given the policy of the Government, there is no way they can replace the voluntary effort put into it at present. The Government are getting youth services on the cheap. As I have already pointed out, something like £1.6 million is the total commitment of the Government in this area. I consider that the policy of this Government and previous Governments should be to aim for a youth service which would have a permanent State structure and would be assisted by the voluntary services, rather than as at present where the voluntary services are the main element and the State simply comes along to top it up. It smacks of the approach of the Government to the whole question of poverty. Various charitable organisations are expected to do the donkey work and, every now and again, the Government hand out a few bob and feel they are doing a very good job when, in fact, they are escaping from their responsibility to deal with the problem.
Having said all that, the Minister of State seems to have a much more progressive view of the youth services. Having read a number of his statements on the matter I feel that, in the long term, he may have a much more progressive effect on the whole area of youth work. The immediate problem is the maintenance beyond the end of this year of full-time youth workers employed at present. They are under threat. That is the primary factor which the Minister should try to deal with in his reply.
I should like to draw the attention of the House to a comparison between the £1.6 million which the State provides for youth work and a figure I mentioned before in the Dáil of £11 million for malicious damages which the Dublin area alone has to meet for 1982. Quite apart from the question of whether the insurance companies should be allowed to shift their liability on to the backs of the taxpayers in the way they are allowed to do so under the Malicious Damages Act — and that is an area at which this House should look — it could reasonably be said that the reallocation of that £11 million would have an extraordinary effect if applied to the area of youth work.
Rather than cutting back on their help towards youth services the Government should look at ways in which to develop them. The malicious damages and other social problems which exist could be curtailed by a greater development of the youth services.
An important point is that it would be entirely unsatisfactory for the Government simply to say they will maintain the development officer service by transferring resources from some other area of youth work. What is necessary, and I am sure the Minister will agree, is an increase in the total amount available for youth services and that in making a decision in relation to the development of such a scheme to provide additional funds rather than a reallocation within the amount at present available.
It must be accepted that at a time when youth unemployment is such a problem, the Government may find it difficult to channel funds into the area of youth employment rather than towards youth services. I would be the last to argue that money should not be provided for youth employment and for the development of that area, but again I stress the need to ensure that the total resources available for the development of our youth, whether by employment or through youth clubs, should be by way of new funds rather than by a shifting of these funds from one area to another.
The Dublin North-East constituency, for which I am a representative, is one of the areas least well served by the youth services. There are a number of youth and other organisations in the area but the resources available to them are very slight. The Minister should look very carefully at how resources available for youth work in this area are spread and at the decision in relation to where the money should be spent. Because of other social problems the areas which most need Government resources do not get them because they do not have the structures to qualify for the money available.
In conclusion, I appeal to the Minister to ensure that full-time youth workers at present operating as development officers will be retained and that they will be integrated into the system of youth workers. I also appeal to him to provide new funding rather than jiggling around existing finances in other areas.
I thank Deputy De Rossa for giving me time to discuss this very important issue. I am glad to see a number of Fianna Fáil Deputies, representing Cavan-Monaghan, Dublin and Wexford, sitting here this evening. Deputy Tunney was responsible for the expansion of youth services in 1979-80 and Deputy Lyons and Deputy Byrne have expressed their anxiety about this subject too.
I realise that the Minister is very reponsive to the needs of young people because I listened to what he had to say when he visited Athlone and I have read a great deal of what he said. If he were to be the arbiter who had to decide if this scheme was to continue, he would decide that it should. Therefore, I hope our presence here this evening will give him added clout when he is making his case to the Government for the retention of this scheme.
I am from the midlands and I have met representatives from various areas who stressed the importance of the scheme. A great deal of the effort put into the youth services is of a voluntary nature. That is a good thing because it helps young people to develop a sense of civic responsibility and generosity towards their fellow human beings. The voluntary element was always of major importance but it must be co-ordinated, guided and pointed in the right direction.
If these schemes are to become permanent, professional help must be provided and the work must be seen to be of lasting benefit. This is where the role of the youth development officers has been of major importance in our cities, towns and villages. This scheme was started on a temporary basis but I hope it will become a permanent feature in the lives of our young people. Young people today are facing many pressures on the home, educational and job fronts and, at every turn, their hopes and ideals are being tested. Now more than ever they must have places to go where they will be given leadership, professional help and guidance. I do not want to see this very fine service run down. If this service was cut off it could do a great deal of harm. This service has made great progress thanks to the work of the pioneers in this field.
There is a great deal of goodwill towards this scheme. I am giving the Minister my party's support when he is making his case to the Government for the continuation of this scheme. Everybody wants this scheme to continue and I know the Minister will do his best to see that it is retained.
I would like to express my thanks to Deputy De Rossa for raising this matter on the Adjournment because it gives me an opportunity to put the record straight about this scheme. There has been considerable confusion and some considerable misinformation about the whole matter.
It might be of help to the House if I were to outline briefly the history of the scheme. The scheme had its origins in the Employment Action Team, 1977 to 1979, one of the recommendations of which was that 100 development officers should be appointed for a period of four years only on a sliding scale of grant support. The scheme was that the State would contribute 90 per cent of the cost of each officer, subject to a maximum of £5,000 in the first year, and that that would decrease progressively to 60 per cent support in the fourth and final year. It is often forgotten, or perhaps sometimes deliberately overlooked, that the then Government envisaged that the voluntary organisations would take up total funding responsibility for the officers when the four year period ended.
Deputy De Rossa, in seeking to have this matter raised on the Adjournment, spoke of a decision of the Government to withdraw funding. It should be quite clear, even from what I have said already, that the end of the scheme was predetermined in 1979. It did not involve any Government decision to end the scheme. Therefore, what decisions have the Government taken in this area in relation to the development officers scheme?
On my appointment I became aware of the depths of concern within the youth organisations about the operation of the development officers scheme. That concern was directed at two aspects. First of all, organisations were finding that the fixed level of support — £5,000 — to stay at that level for four years was an increasing burden. Then they were apprehensive about the imminence of the expiry date of the scheme. So, within days of my appointment, I committed myself to addressing both of those concerns. I would remind the House that in last year's budget the Minister for Finance made funds available to increase the level of support for each officer from £5,000 to £7,000, a fact graciously acknowledged by Deputy De Rossa.
Deputy De Rossa has commented that the level of State support for the youth service is inadequate. It is worth reminding him of just what decisions were taken in last year's budget, that last year saw an increase of 40 per cent in the level of support for the development officers scheme. It saw an increase of 36 per cent in the general level of support for grant-aided organisations. That saw the entry into the scheme for the first time of a number of organisations that had been excluded from the scheme in the past. Without in any sense challenging the interest or commitment of the Deputies on the Fianna Fáil benches to the voluntary youth work area, it is worth commenting that that increase — an average increase of 37½ per cent — compares somewhat strikingly with the 1 per cent increase proposed in the Estimates published by the outgoing Administration.
Was the money not provided by the Fianna Fáil Government.
No, 1 per cent was what they provided; 1 per cent was the level of concern of the Fianna Fáil Government on their way out of office with the voluntary youth organisations.
It was among the moneys prepared by the Fianna Fáil Government. They could not have given it out were it not there.
If the Deputy will just cast his mind back to what happened he might remember that his Government were voted out of office in a general election at a period after the Estimates had been published, that the new Government revised the Estimates and, in the revised Estimates, made additional funding available for the youth service at the levels I have suggested. Everybody in the voluntary youth work area is aware of it. Everybody in the voluntary youth work area knows how hollow is the concern of some of the Deputies opposite.
Perhaps their saving of £1 million on Ringaskiddy Harbour is where they got it.
At that time I explained to the concerned organisations that any long-term decisions would have to await the Estimates discussions for next year. However, in order to remove immediate anxiety, I announced back in May of last year, at the 21st anniversary dinner of the National Federation of Youth Clubs, that I would guarantee the continuation of support for all serving officers until the end of the current year. Had it not been for that decision, had we not interfered with the decisions taken by Fianna Fáil back in 1979, then the employment of 11 officers would have expired by the end of this year——
Deputies
That is not true.
Therefore the only decisions that have been taken by this Government in relation to the development officers scheme have been positive ones. I am well aware of the value of the work done by many of these officers. I am personally most concerned in all of this for the committed youth people who have lived with uncertainty since 1979, who have been sentenced to live under an ad hoc scheme since 1979.
We started the scheme.
Order, the Minister has been brought in to reply and he should be allowed to do so.
He is not telling the truth.
I hope that is not an imputation that he is telling lies because that would not be in order.
This is very interesting. If one is to listen to the heckles and interjections this is apparently the greatest scheme of all time. But it is worth remembering what were the thoughts of the youth organisations at the time when they pointed out the need for such a scheme to be placed on secure foundations because they said — and this was a quote from Geoffrey Corry, now General Secretary of the National Federation of Youth Clubs, then writing in Youth Forum—“otherwise . . . that scheme has the makings of a great catastrophe for youth work . . . ”.
I do not believe anybody, including the youth organisations themselves, sees the development officers scheme as a long-term solution to the staffing of voluntary youth organisations. The scheme was an ad hoc one which did not arouse enthusiasm among youth organisations, as I have shown with the brief quote I have given, when it was introduced back in 1979. It was accepted only after encouragement and cajoling — and we all know how persuasive Deputy Jim Tunney can be. It took all of his persuasive powers to persuade anybody to take up the scheme.
He went out. Let us see how the Minister of State will do it.
Our present difficulties all stem from that fact that this was a scheme built on shifting sands.
Now the sands are shifting.
A fact recognisd at the time by the youth organisations.
They welcomed it wholeheartedly.
Deputy De Rossa's motion implies that ending the scheme equates with the termination of the employment of the workers concerned. That is just not so. My desire is to end as soon as possible the ad hoc nature of the scheme, at the same time to support, on a proper basis, the maximum number of youth workers.
I have been concerned from the outset about the viability of the scheme. I moved quickly to improve for 1983 its terms by bringing the basic grant from £5,000per capita to £7,000 per capita and also to assure the organisations concerned about the employment of the workers during all of 1983. That means that the scheme can now be reviewed in the context of the Estimates discussions and plans for public expenditure for 1984 as well as the general level of support provided for youth services.
As soon as the 1984 Estimates decisions have been taken I will be making a statement on the provision of State support for full-time youth workers. Youth organisations will themselves have to consider their needs, resources and priorities in consultation with my Department. At that stage we will be in a position to await the considered views of the Costello Committee on the Development of our Youth Services.
May I ask one question?
One question.
Arising from what he has said, is the Minister of State promising to maintain in employment the full-time youth workers as presently employed?
I have made it quite clear that the only decision taken was to continue the employment of any officer whose employment would otherwise terminate until the end of this year, any officer who would be out of a job had the scheme as originally conceived been adhered to.
The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. Tuesday, 25 October 1983.