On 14 February 1991, I received a letter from the Director of the National Youth Council about the matter referred to in the question. I subsequently received a letter dated 18 February from the Deputy on the matter.
In the correspondence referred to it was stated that the National Youth Council had two representatives at 35 of 50 meetings of the National Economic and Social Council in the period 7 September 1984 to 21 July 1989.
The attendance records, however, show that there were 57 meetings of the National Economic and Social Council during the period in question and joint attendance of the National Youth Council representatives occurred on only 24 occasions. In fact, in the period from March 1987 to July 1989, the period with which as Taoiseach I am most familiar, joint attendance by the NYCI representatives occurred in only three out of 24 occasions and the council were unrepresented at four meetings.
I would emphasise, however, that it was not on the basis of non-attendance that the NYCI's representation was reduced to one in October 1989, when the membership of the NESC was reconstituted. As I have said in the House in the past, the Government had only six places to allocate to independent members and we wanted to assemble as broad a cross-section of community representation as possible. The Government and social partners consider that one representative from the NYCI is adequate, particularly as a representative can always send an alternate to a meeting. Other equally important representative bodies such as the ICOS and the CIF have only one representative.