I propose to take Questions Nos. 507 and 508 together.
The Youth Affairs Unit of my Department provides a range of funding schemes, programmes and supports to the youth sector. Funding of some €53.498m is available in 2013 to support the provision of youth services and programmes to young people throughout the country including those from disadvantaged communities.
Funding for the support of voluntary youth work is made available on an annual basis to national and major regional voluntary youth organisations through the Youth Service Grant Scheme. In 2013 some €10.337m is being provided to support the work of 31 such organisations under this Scheme.
The continued funding of voluntary youth organisations through the Scheme is intended to ensure the emergence, promotion, growth and development of youth organisations with distinctive philosophies and programmes aimed at the social education of young people. The work of these organisations is based on the following philosophy:
- it is educational in design and objective
- it is concerned with the personal, social, recreational, cultural and spiritual development of young people
- it rests upon the concept and practice of voluntary adult involvement with and for young people
- it promotes the concept and practice of youth participation in the programme and life of the organisation itself, local communities and society in general
- it promotes co-operation among youth and youth work organisations
- it seeks to respond to the real needs of youth.
My Department has received no representations on behalf of any of the voluntary youth organisations funded under the Youth Service Grant Scheme in relation to the Charities Act 2009. Implementation of this Act is a matter for my colleague Mr Alan Shatter, Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence.