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Youth Cafés Provision

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 15 January 2014

Wednesday, 15 January 2014

Questions (714)

Eoghan Murphy

Question:

714. Deputy Eoghan Murphy asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will provide details of the assessment process for the awarding of youth café capital funding; the criteria involved; and the reasons for ineligibility and so on. [55530/13]

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Written answers

In February 2013, I announced that my Department would be providing funding for youth capital projects in 2013. In this regard, total funding of €1.55m has been made available for my Department's Youth Cafe 2013 programme.

Pobal assisted my Department with the application and evaluation process for the Youth Cafés 2013 Programme.

Applications for new youth cafés were invited from organisations and consortia involved in the provision of services to young people, with at least 3 years’ experience in the development of youth services. It was a requirement of the scheme that applications were to be submitted ‘online’ by 12 April, 2013. Detailed guidelines on the application and appraisal process and supporting documents in relation about best practice for youth cafes was made available to applicants on the Pobal website.

Some 95 applications for support under this scheme were received by Pobal.

To be eligible, applications were required to demonstrate that the proposed new youth café would be developed in line with my Department’s Youth Cafes in Ireland: a Best Practice Guide; that the facility would be target service for 12 – to 25 year olds and aim to meet the needs of the local youth population, particularly in disadvantaged areas. Criteria also included the extent to which the proposed new youth café would add value to existing provision for young people in a locality, criteria in relation to the capacity of the organisers to effectively manage the project, the involvement of youth in the development of project, how the project would be sustainable and the strength of the overall proposal.

Eligible applications were then appraised on the basis of a detailed assessment of the extent to which the criteria were met. The applications that scored well in the initial process with Pobal were further evaluated in the Department taking account of youth population, existing youth service provision and geographic considerations. Following the completion of the assessment and evaluation process some 30 proposals for new youth cafes projects were approved for funding and for inclusion in the next phase of the youth café programme. These successful applicants have now entered the pre-contracting development stage and are working with Pobal to progress their projects in this regard.

I have arranged for a copy of the detailed guidelines on the application and appraisal process provided to all applicants to be sent to the Deputy.

Details of the proposed 30 new youth cafés are available on my Department’s website at www.dcya.gov.ie.

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