I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
As Minister of State with special responsibility for youth affairs, it is a source of enormous satisfaction to me to propose the Youth Work Bill, 1997 to the House. It is, without doubt, the centrepiece of our efforts to reform Ireland's youth work policies, structures, programmes and services. The introduction of this Bill provides the House with a marvellous opportunity to debate ground-breaking legislation aimed at giving a strong legislative basis to the provision, co-ordination, monitoring, evaluation and development of youth work programmes and services.
Many people ask what exactly we mean when we speak of youth work. For the first time, the Bill provides a clear mission for youth work by defining it in section 2 as being a "programme of activity that is designed for the purpose of providing developmental and educational training so as to assist the personal and social development of young persons which (a) requires the voluntary participation of young persons, and (b) is complementary to academic or vocational training".
There are a number of key features of youth work in this country. They include the fact that it entails the involvement of young people on a truly voluntary basis, where young people get involved because they want to, not because they have to. Youth work in Ireland is made possible by volunteer adult leaders working with young people in such a way as to promote the active participation of young people as real partners in the process. Another characteristic of youth work is that it is a mutually beneficial and enjoyable experience entailing an active mode of experiential learning. Young people are involved in learning by doing in real life situations through, for example, arts and crafts, drama, environmental work and outdoor pursuits. They are also involved in learning by reflecting on the experiences encountered as a result of this youth work model. It provides structures whereby young people participate in decision-making, planning, organising and evaluating. Youth work permits communities to play a meaningful role in meeting the needs of their young people. Last but not least youth work in Ireland is implemented primarily by voluntary groups and organisations.
The Youth Work Bill is the culmination of years of work and discussion among all those involved in youth work. I avail of this opportunity to pay special tribute to them. I have no hesitation in saying the Youth Work Bill, 1997, has historical significance in the Irish youth work context. History is all around us but historical events do not just happen: they can be influenced and planned. As a French author once said, "all history is choice". This is especially true in the context of the Youth Work Bill which came about as a direct result of a significant political choice expressed in the December 1994 policy agreement, A Government of Renewal, between the three political parties that form the Government. That agreement, included a commitment to prepare a Bill to provide a specific, detailed legislative framework for youth work. In other words, the Youth Work Bill came about because a definite and reasoned political decision was made that such action was needed. This undertaking was repeated in the chapter on youth work in the Government's April 1995 White Paper on Education. Charting our Education Future.
A Youth Work Bill was long overdue, as is shown by the fact that all these Government statements on legislation for youth work drew much of their inspiration from the seminal Irish youth work document, the report of the national youth work policy committee chaired by Justice Declan Costello and issued in September 1984. The Government then in office included in its December 1995 document, In Partnership with Youth, a commitment that legislation would be introduced for youth work. The period between December 1995 and December 1994 yielded little progress on the issue of specific legislation for youth work, with the notable exception of the rejected 1990 Private Members' Bill proposed by my party while in opposition.
However, during this time much useful work was done in related spheres. For example, the Bill draws on much of the content of the excellent report of the consultative group on the development of youth work, presented in November 1993 to my predecessor, Deputy Alyward. That report made a number of recommendations on the development of youth work provision particularly as regards definitions, underlying principles, characteristics of youth work, evaluation, and youth work structures and much of its content is reflected in the Bill.
In addition, I carried out my own research, consultation and discussion. On 28 June 1995, I wrote to all the relevant bodies to give them the opportunity to present written observations on the chapter on youth work of the White Paper, Charting our Education Future. Some 31 submissions were received in response to my request. My officials and I met representatives of several of the interest groups who have made submissions including the National Youth Council of Ireland, the National Forum for Voluntary Youth Councils, the National Youth Federation, Foróige, the Catholic Youth Council, the City of Dublin vocational education committee — Comhairle le Leas Óige — and the National Association of Travellers' Centres. Other relevant research was also undertaken, such as the obtaining of information on the legal and administrative framework for the provision of youth work services in Northern Ireland and in England.
It has been a long haul but anything worth doing is worth doing well and, as a great philosopher once said: "in all things, success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure".
The principal purposes of the Bill are to define the functions of education boards regarding youth work, including the stipulation of their procedure for planning, prioritising, funding and reporting on the provision of youth work programmes and services; establish a special youth work committee in each education board; detail the policy, budget, research, monitoring and assessment functions of the Minister for Education regarding youth work; establish a national youth work advisory committee; enable the allocation of grants for youth work, and establish a voluntary youth council in each of the functional areas to be prescribed.
The Bill gives a clear legal definition to youth work. It also defines the responsibilities of the Minister for Education and of the education boards regarding youth work. On the one hand the Bill achieves a formalisation of the Government's commitment to youth work because by setting out the Department's policy, co-ordination, budget, research, monitoring, assessment and consultative functions, it will represent a clear and unequivocal Government commitment to the performance of youth work functions now performed on an informal and ad hoc basis. On the other hand, the Youth Work Bill, through stipulating that each education board will, in so far as is practicable and within the financial resources available to it ensure the provision of youth work programmes and services for its region, provides that the benefits resulting from subsidiarity are gained in the delivery of youth work services. We require a structure that is more responsive to the needs of the regions and is representative of community interests, not remote from them.
Accordingly, the resource allocation function exercised centrally by the Department in regard to local and regional youth work programmes and services will be devolved to the education boards. This in turn will help to free up the Department sufficiently to enable it to concentrate more closely on issues such as national policy formulation, overall planning and development, assessment of performance, financial management, quality assurance and the national distribution of funding. This situation will be very much in line with the European norm. Empowerment and mobilisation of regional and community resources is a feature of countries such as Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Countries such as France, Italy, Sweden, Spain and Portugal — which share with Ireland a tradition of highly centralised control of all aspects of the education system — have made significant progress towards devolving responsibilities to the regional level.
I am confident that, through the Youth Work Bill, the education boards will be aware of the youth work needs of regional communities and will involve and empower communities and ensure that youth work needs are met more effectively and co-ordinated more efficiently. However, the regionalisation of decision-making to education boards will not result in the establishment of any kind of rigid State youth service and will not substitute public sector activity for voluntary sector activity in the youth work sphere. On the contrary, the Bill sets out detailed procedures for ensuring that youth work services will normally be secured by education boards through grant-aiding voluntary youth work organisations.
Section 4 sets out the precise procedure that an education board must undertake before it may consider providing a youth work service itself. This procedure entails placing notices in newspapers, seeking proposals from voluntary youth work organisations for the provision of the youth work service in question and provides that the board may only provide the service if, having consulted its youth work committee, it specifies in a report that the proposals submitted by voluntary organisations are not suitable and if it passes a resolution in favour of the provision of the service by the board itself.
The Bill also formally provides that the Department will prescribe or recognise national voluntary youth work organisations which will be designated or named by the education boards. It is intended to ensure the primacy of the volunteer in youth work. The most significant way in which the Bill will do this is through the establishment of voluntary youth councils of volunteer youth leaders throughout the country. These councils will have a number of vital functions, including the crucial power to nominate 50 per cent of the members of each education board's youth work committee; the important duty of advising the relevant education board in respect of its youth work planning and the valuable role of providing a forum for local voluntary youth work organisations. Hence, the Youth Work Bill should help to ensure that there are adequate safeguards to ensure the continuation and development of volunteerism in the youth service, which, to use the words in the Taoiseach's foreword to the 1977Policy For Youth & Sport document, produced while he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, “plays such a significant role in the life of the people and strengthens the web of society”.
Volunteerism is the key to real success in the provision of youth work services. It is worth pointing out, in connection with the voluntary youth councils, that among the innovative provisions of the Youth Work Bill are that at least one fifth of the membership of each council will be set aside for volunteer youth leaders under the age of 25 and there will be special provision for volunteer youth leaders working with the travelling community. It is intended, therefore, that the councils will be effective guardians of the interests of the voluntary youth work sector.
Moreover, everyone is aware of the greater demand for accountability in the expenditure of public resources. In that context, the Bill is important because several of its provisions, particularly those regarding monitoring and assessment, give everyone in the youth service the opportunity to demonstrate the benefits and value for money of youth work and ensure that public funds expended on youth work services are spent efficiently and effectively. Therefore, the Bill should help us to attract additional resources for youth work. In addition, the provisions of the Youth Work Bill stressing integration, co-ordination, assessment and targeting will meet the value for money requirement which must attach to all public expenditure.
In particular, the Bill enhances the measurement of the benefits of youth work. Section 19 provides for the application of terms and conditions to the allocation by the Minister for Education of grants to organisations in respect of the provision of youth work services. Section 4 provides for the application of terms and conditions to the allocation by education boards of grants to organisations in respect of the provision of youth work services. Section 3 and 9 provide for a statutory national system of monitoring and assessment of youth work services. Specific provision is made in section 3(4) for value for money considerations to be taken into proper account, in that it stipulates that monitoring and assessment shall have regard to an evaluation of the expenditure incurred in the provision of youth work programmes and services.
Section 4(1)(c) makes a similar stipulation in the case of monitoring and assessment carried out by the education boards. In addition, the value for money of youth work will be given added emphasis by the special importance to be attached in the Youth Work Bill to co-ordination between youth work policies, other policies affecting youth and to the youth work needs of disadvantaged young people between ten and 21 years of age.
Furthermore, the national youth work advisory committee envisaged in the Bill will include nominees of the national body representing the views of the voluntary youth work organisations and other Departments. This will permit the availability of the best possible advice in respect of the optimum integration and co-ordination between youth work services and other services for young people, thus helping to ensure value for money through proper targeting of resources, integration of efforts and networking between agencies. Similarly, the planned youth work committees of the education boards, by including representatives of the voluntary youth councils and important statutory agencies such as health boards, FÁS and the Garda juvenile liaison service, will also contribute to the value for money requirement.
Another important feature of the Bill is that it includes provisions for consultation and partnership in decision-making. At national level, the fact that the national youth work advisory committee will include nominees of the national body, recognised as representing the views of the voluntary youth work organisations, should be another crucial guarantee of the voluntary nature of the youth service. Similarly, the provisions in the Bill on the youth work committee which each education board will be obliged to establish represent a good model for partnership. This partnership will be achieved by having an equal partnership between the statutory sector and the voluntary sector on that youth work committee. This will guarantee a central role for the voluntary youth work sector in the development of youth work policies and services.
As I indicated, several of the Bill's provisions, especially those with regard to monitoring and assessment, provide the opportunity to demonstrate the benefits and the value for money of youth work and to ensure that public funds spent on youth work services are spent efficiently and effectively. This development should in due course help to attract additional resources for youth work. I have no doubt that youth work can help to prevent social ills, such as juvenile delinquency, and do so in a much more cost effective way. There is no doubt that rehabilitation, even where successful, is extremely expensive. In this regard, I was particularly struck by an article I read recently in The Economist of 8 March 1997 which stated that in England it costs more to keep a child in a young offenders' institution than it would to send him to Eton.
As Deputies are aware, it was a tragic Easter weekend this year for the families and friends of all those killed in the recent so-called "joyriding" incidents. One of the saddest was the case of the 71 year old mother of seven from Raheny, Dublin, who died after being struck by a car driven at high speed by a 15 year old. That event holds a particular resonance for me because I understand that, in a thoroughly dignified response to the awful death of his dear mother, Mr. Joe McGrath made an impressive plea for improved recreational, developmental and sporting programmes and facilities for young people, particularly in disadvantaged areas. Similar pleas were made in Cork in response to recent tragedies there.
Communities are crying out for greater recreational resources, sporting facilities and services for young people. If young people are occupied in positive activities the evil and negative attractions can be dispelled. While we need an increased emphasis on the standards of law and order which go to make a civilised society, we must also address the root causes of problems such as joyriding. Youth work can help young people, including those at risk of getting involved in anti-social activities, to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to overcome the problems caused by unemployment, alienation, demoralisation, crime and drug abuse.
In this context, the Youth Work Bill is significant because it stipulates that in the development of youth work programmes and services, priority will be given to the youth work requirements of young people between ten and 21 years of age who are socially or economically disadvantaged. I am committed to this core principle because, in the words of the great Nelson Mandela "A nation should be judged not by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones."
Given that the youth work sphere is quite complex and specialist, a separate piece of legislation for youth work is warranted. However, there is a clear link between the Youth Work Bill and the Education Bill, 1997, because one of the key aims of the Youth Work Bill is to set down the youth work responsibilities of the education boards. As the Education Bill, which will set up education boards and education regions, is not yet enacted, provision has been made in the Youth Work Bill for the definition of an education board as being any board established by or under statute for an area within the State — such area is defined as an education region — and designated by order.
Tá an rialtas seo go hiomlán i bhfabhar na Gaeilge. Tá an rialtas den tuairim go bhfuil tionchar mór ag an obair don aos óg agus ag an gcóras oideachais trí chéile ar fhás agus ar fhorbairt an chultúir Ghaelaigh, an Ghaeilge san áireamh. Tá tacaíocht an rialtais don Ghaeilge le feiceáil sa mhír den Bhille um Obair don Aos Óg faoin gcoiste comhairleach náisiúnta um obair don aos óg ina sonraítear go n-ainmneoidh an tAire Ealaíon, Cultúir agus Gaeltachta ball amháin, ar a laghad, le bheith ar an gcoiste comhairleach. Déanann an Bille Oideachais deimhin de go mbeidh ról tábhachtach ag na boird oideachais i gcur chun cinn na Gaeilge. Déanann an Bille Oideachais deimhin de chomh maith, go mbeidh ról láidir ag na boird oideachais tacú leis an nGaeilge ina réigiúin féin. Beidh sé de dhualgas ar na boird a chinntiú go mbeidh dóthain daoine ina bhfostaíocht chun seirbhísí trí Ghaeilge a chur ar fáil. Ní mór go mbeadh cumas maith sa Ghaeilge ag stiúrthóir bhord oideachais sa chás go mbíonn cuid den Ghaeltacht taobh istigh de limistéar an bhoird oideachais sin. Moltar chomh maith go mbeadh Gaeilge mhaith ag stiúrthóirí na mbord eile.
Having regard to the need not to interfere with the single sex programmes and organisations that are necessary features of youth work, the provisions made in the Youth Work Bill regarding gender equity in sections 3(2), 4(3), 6(7), 7(1), 10(2) and 14(3) stipulate that regard must be had to the treatment of males and females in relation to access to youth work and the number of males and females participating in youth work and in the provision, planning, monitoring and the assessment of, as well as advising and consulting on, youth work programmes and services.
As the Minister for Education did in her speech on the Second Stage of the Education Bill on 4 March, I remind the House of an observation made by the President of the High Court, Mr. Justice Costello, on 11 October 1996. He said:
Hundreds of millions of pounds are spent annually on education by means of administrative measures known only to a handful of officials and specialists ... the measures [are] not readily available to the public and their effect [is] uncertain and often ambiguous.
This point applies not alone to the formal education system but to the non-formal or youth work sector. Together with the Education Bill, the Youth Work Bill will help to address Mr. Justice Costello's concerns. In particular, the Youth Work Bill will provide a statutory basis for the development of youth work services on a phased basis within the resources available.
As I said, the Youth Work Bill, 1997, has historical significance in the Irish youth work context. It arises out of a sustained, open and intensive process of consultation, carried out with all of the partners in youth work. The Youth Work Bill will validate and affirm the voluntary hallmark of the Irish Youth Service; enhance youth participation in decision making; help to ensure that our young people are served to best effect through regionalised partnership between the voluntary and statutory sectors and devolve a significant degree of responsibility to volunteer youth leaders drawn from local communities.
There is a widespread recognition that the long process of consultation and consideration that went into the production of the Youth Work Bill significantly enhanced mutual understanding. It promoted an appreciation of respective positions and difficulties. It promoted an increased awareness of the fundamental importance of partnership, pluralism and a deeper commitment to co-operation and consensus. Since becoming Minister of State with responsibility for youth affairs, I have endeavoured to promote dialogue and debate with maximum transparency. The Bill before us today is the product of such openness.
Publication of the Bill does not, however, bring to an end the dialogue between the partners in youth work which has played such a key part in advancing us to this point. I look forward to hearing the views of this House. Where a reasonable case is put for amendment of the Bill which does not dilute its central principles I am prepared to consider that case objectively and, if necessary, to bring forward proposals for amendments on Committee Stage.
I recognise the importance of youth work, and its power to influence the lives of our young people is recognised in Ireland, Europe and throughout the world. However, we must accept the need to identify clearly the challenges facing youth work. From time to time we must take stock of development needs facing us and we must think carefully about how to address them. The Youth Work Bill, 1997, comes before this House at a particularly opportune time, for the reason that we must now take action to put in place a proper legislative framework for youth work in Ireland — a framework that will enhance and enrich its inherently dynamic and proactive nature. I commend the Bill to the House.
