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Joint Committee on European Union Affairs díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 23 Feb 2022

European Year of Youth: Discussion

Today's engagement is on the topic of the European Year of Youth. Ar son an choiste, ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh Mr. Ivailo Kalfin, executive director of Eurofound, and his colleague, Ms Mary McCaughey. From the National Youth Council of Ireland the youth representative to the European Youth Forum, Mr. Mark McNulty, will be joining us in a few minutes. Joining us online from Léargas are Ms Lorraine Gilligan, executive director, and Ms Emma Grainger. Our guests are all welcome.

Before we begin, I must read a note on privilege and some housekeeping matters. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity, by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to any identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

For witnesses attending remotely outside of the Leinster House campus, there are some limitations to parliamentary privilege and, as such, they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness physically present does. Witnesses participating in this committee session from a jurisdiction outside of the State are advised that they should also be mindful of the domestic law and how it may apply to the evidence that they give. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside of the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where he or she is not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside of the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I will ask any member participating by MS Teams prior to making his or her contribution to confirm that he or she is on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.

I welcome Mr. McNulty from the National Youth Council of Ireland who has joined us. I call Mr. Kalfin to make his opening statement.

Mr. Ivailo Kalfin

I thank the committee for the opportunity to make this address. Eurofound is the European Agency for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and the only EU agency based in Ireland. Its role is to provide knowledge to assist in the development of better social, employment and work-related policies. The agency is tripartite in nature, which means it is run by workers, employers and governments together.

The year 2022 has been designated the European Year of Youth by the European Union. It aims to shine a light on the importance of European youth to build a better future, one which is more inclusive, greener and more digital. I will be speaking about the impact the Covid-19 crisis has had on young people in the EU in general and Ireland specifically, as well as the broader issues facing young people.

Under the banner "Living, Working and Covid-19", Eurofound carried out a large online survey capturing the experiences of citizens across all EU member states at different points over the past 24 months. With over 160,000 responses to date, of which 15,500 have come from Ireland, the survey revealed that throughout Europe and to varying degrees, citizens reported the following problems which I will share on the slides. After Covid we found that they report high levels of loneliness and depression, coupled with low levels of optimism; deep concern about their financial and labour market future, notwithstanding the positive effect of supporting measures, which I will speak about later; high levels of job loss and a dramatic decrease in working time for many; and an increase in telework, which is placing a strain on workers with children.

Young people were once again one of the most adversely affected and vulnerable groups in society. Still recovering from the 2008 crisis, they are experiencing persistent high levels of unemployment and difficulty in accessing housing. As a result of the pandemic and consequent lockdowns, young people were hardest hit by the restrictions as they are over-represented in sectors such as retail, travel, hospitality and the performing arts, which were totally closed during the lockdowns. Young people are disproportionately faced with job loss, a decrease in working time and insecurity about their professional and financial futures. Young people’s opportunities to gain experience and skills have been severely impacted by the impact of the pandemic on education, apprenticeships and training. Young people report low levels of mental well–being, particularly feelings of loneliness and risk of depression. In Ireland specifically, young people aged 18 to 34 had the lowest mental well-being, 6% lower than the EU average. It should be noted that young women are particularly affected across a range of indicators, including work-life balance and mental health.

These are the negative points of the result of Covid but we have positive news as well as will be seen on our next slide. Young people remain slightly more optimistic about the future than other age groups. Optimism in Ireland among 18- to 34-year olds is lower than the other age groups but it is much higher than in the EU 27 as a whole. Compared with the other EU member states, we have much higher optimism among young people. Young people also report a higher level of trust in the EU and national governments, the details of which and exact figures can be seen in the information we provided to the committee. In Ireland in particular, we noticed relatively high trust levels in the EU and national governments during the pandemic compared with other member states. Our graph shows four iterations of the study and that the levels of trust and satisfaction with the pandemic support measures in Ireland are much higher compared with the other EU member states. These figures are for the general population but the figures are similar for young people.

I will turn to the youth employment context. During the 2008 to 2013 economic crisis, we saw how young people were more vulnerable to economic recession than other age groups. Youth unemployment soared above 40% in many EU countries in 2013, with rates above 50% in Greece and Spain. At that time, Ireland’s youth unemployment rate was 26.8%. In 2015, Eurofound calculated that the economic loss to the EU of youth disengagement was estimated at over €142 billion a year.

This is the negative impact on the European economy from youth disengagement. The EU’s Youth Guarantee and a more positive economic climate had seen youth unemployment recover in recent years, reaching pre-crisis levels again in 2019. With the Covid-19 crisis, although we see EU level youth unemployment largely returning to pre-pandemic levels, young people were more often working on less secure, temporary contracts that were easier to terminate, part-time or for low wages, all of which put them at higher risk of job loss and social exclusion.

Eurofound also looked into sectors and their breakdowns. We saw that youth employment was over-represented in sectors most affected by the pandemic, such as retail, food and accommodation services, health and social work as well as arts, recreation and entertainment. Moreover, the impact of lockdown closures on education and human capital accumulation is likely to have long-term implications for young people’s employment participation. If we zoom in on the most vulnerable section of young people, we need to focus on young people in Europe aged between 15 and 29 who are not in employment, education or training, known as NEETs. In 2013, the share of NEETs aged between 15 and 29 was 16.1%. By 2019, the rate had fallen to 12.6%. Now, however, it has increased again as a result of the pandemic. In our research, we found that there are about 2 million young people across Europe who are NEETs. Two thirds of them, which amounts to more than 7 million young people across Europe, are discouraged and are not looking for a job at all.

The European Union adopted and implemented a number of initiatives, which are contained in my written submission, to reduce the number of NEETs across the European Union. A new EU youth strategy was adopted in 2018 and sets out a framework for co-operation with member states on their youth policies for the period 2019 to 2027. The strategy focuses on three core areas of action, centred around the words "engage, connect, empower". To aid the economic recovery from the pandemic, on 1 July 2020, the new Commission launched a youth employment support package to provide a bridge to jobs for the next generation. The Commission put forward a proposal for a Council recommendation, entitled a Bridge to Jobs - Reinforcing the Youth Guarantee, to replace the 2013 recommendation. It extends the age range covered by the Youth Guarantee from age 24 to 29.

The EU has NextGenerationEU in place, which is the European recovery plan, and aims to invest more than €800 billion to make Europe healthier, greener, and more digital. Then there is ALMA, a European Commission initiative, which stands for "aim, learn, master, achieve". This is particularly relevant to the NEETs population of the EU and tries to help these young people find their way to the job market, especially the most disadvantaged NEETs aged 18 to 30 who are vulnerable with regard to their chances of accessing work or training.

Employment issues are clearly critical to the situation of young people today across the EU and in Ireland, and I have tried to focus on this today, but Covid-19 has seen a multitude of other issues come to the fore, including higher levels of stress and related psychosocial risks, difficulties with access to housing, challenges related to raising children and caring for the elderly, job insecurity and, unfortunately, many more that define the world of young people today. Eurofound will continue to research these issues in an effort to provide committee members and other policymakers with the data and analysis they require to respond effectively to the higher levels of trust of Europe’s young people and to shape better policies to improve their lives and work into the future.

I want to flag that, at the end of last year, we published the Impact of Covid-19 on Young People in the EU, which is our latest research on the youth. There is much more information on our website, where there is a dedicated section on youth unemployment. I thank members for their attention, and I am ready to answer their questions.

Mr Kalfin provided a lot of statistics and useful information and I thank him for his contribution. I will take the three organisations together, if that is okay with members, and then we can take questions afterwards. I call Mr. McNulty, from the National Youth Council of Ireland. He is a youth representative for the European Youth Forum.

Mr. Mark McNulty

On behalf of the National Youth Council of Ireland, I thank committee members for the invitation to speak to them today concerning the European Year of Youth. The National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, represents 57 youth organisations in Ireland and our member organisations support more than 380,000 young people throughout Ireland, with the help of more than 40,000 volunteers and 1,400 paid staff. We have formal and informal relationships with national youth councils, international non-governmental youth organisations and representative bodies across the EU, which informs our works and allows for regular exchange on European issues.

The NYCI’s primary means of working with young people in democratic engagement around the European Union is through the young voices - EU youth dialogue process, a programme developed by NYCI that creates opportunities for young people from the age of 16 to 30 who have an interest in change-making. It brings young people into the policymaking process at a national and European level. The young voices programme is a model for youth democratic participation that allows young people to grow and develop capacity, as well as fostering key skills towards achieving the long-term outcomes that address the policy concerns of young people.

The NYCI consistently engages in advocacy at a European level, including through sending delegations of young people to the European Youth Conference and engaging at a European level with the European Youth Forum to represent the voice of Irish youth to the European Commission, Parliament and all other relevant forums. The NYCI has recently been particularly focused on the Conference on the Future of Europe, and as one of the NYCI’s representatives to the European Youth Forum, I have been keenly following this process.

The NYCI is a partner with the European Youth Forum on the 25% project, which is to engage young people and collect ideas from across the EU. The project is so named because 25% of Europe's population is made up of young people, but our voices are not equally heard or equally represented in political structures and institutions. This project has collected 1,000 ideas from across Ireland. This very clearly illustrates that young people remain thoroughly engaged with the European Union. It is incredibly important, therefore, that the European Year of Youth increases this engagement with the EU and makes sure young people are heard as we come out of the pandemic, leaving a lasting legacy of a year that benefits young people and the European Union as a whole.

The initial announcement of the Year of Youth was something of a surprise. Speaking to other youth organisations around Europe, nobody expected the announcement for 2022 and it was met with cynicism in some quarters. However, the youth sector has quickly adapted and developed hopes or expectations for this year. The NYCI is a member of the steering group for the European Year of Youth and will work alongside Léargas, as the national co-ordinator of the year, and other members to ensure meaningful engagement with young people. The youth sector plays a pivotal role in supporting young people and in mitigating the negative impact of Covid-19 on their lives. It also emphasises the importance of face-to-face youth work for young people and highlighted that those most at risk were the most disconnected during the pandemic.

I spoke to a group of MEPs in recent weeks, and I summed up the views of young people from recent young voices and 25% project events and most young people engaged in issues around the European Year of Youth, which is that young people want to feel they are better involved in shaping the EU. It is important the EU does not exist in a Brussels bubble to young people. Instead, it must be something that visibly impacts their lives and is something in which they can be involved in shaping.

We hope for a concrete way forward at the end of the year that empowers young people and offers change across all policy spheres, and not just within the traditional confines of youth policies. Since 2018, young voices have been advocating for a youth check and, more recently, the European Youth Forum proposed a youth test that would require an assessment of all policy that impacts young people on a European level. This is just one way in which policymakers could show a commitment to young people. The EU and our Government should seek to consult youth regularly, online and offline, and take these consultations into account.

It is also important that opportunities exist for young people to experience the EU, either through working or studying in other member states or other means, and that these opportunities are available to all young people. We must strengthen these opportunities this year and we hope it would involve Ireland developing a plan around the reinforced Youth Guarantee and implementing it.

It is very important we ensure youth organisations, large and small, are empowered to make sure young people take advantage of this year. We need buy-in from politicians and every Department to ensure they look to how they can empower young people. The pandemic has shown that young people are key parts of society. We made huge sacrifices.

It is important young people are shown that they matter and are heard throughout this year and into the future.

I thank members for their attention. I welcome any questions or comments members have on what I said.

I thank Mr. McNulty for that challenging contribution to facilitate the voice of young people. I think that the Brussels bubble term could be used again, so I thank him for that.

I call Ms Lorraine Gilligan, executive director of Léargas, to maker her contribution.

Ms Lorraine Gilligan

I am the executive director of Léargas, and I am joined this morning by my colleague, Ms Emma Grainger, manager of our strategic initiatives team and our contact point for the European Year of Youth. She will assist with me with this introduction and will help with any follow-up questions that members might have.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to join it to discuss the European Year of Youth. Members already know that the decision by the European Parliament and Council to designate 2022 officially as the European Year of Youth aims to celebrate, support and engage young people across the EU, in particular recognition of the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the lives, experiences and opportunities of young people. This year will result in European Year of Youth activities and initiatives that will be organised at national, local and European levels throughout the year for young people and those working with them to help them to discover more about their opportunities and how they can participate in them.

In Ireland, the European Year of Youth is co-ordinated by Léargas in partnership with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. For those who might not be very familiar with Léargas, we have been a national agency for EU programmes for more than 35 years. We place a very strong focus on inclusion and diversity, and we adopt a supportive approach to our work. We deliver European exchange programmes in adult, school and vocational education and training, as well as youth, volunteering and community work. All the participants in our programmes include young people, school pupils, vocational learners, teachers, youth workers and generally those working with young people.

We in Léargas have a privileged position to witness how these exchanges and opportunities to connect people in different communities and countries can bring a European dimension, and that European bubble comes closer into the lives and work of people and organisations throughout Europe. We see the European Year of Youth as a very exciting opportunity to amplify and bolster the voices and work already being undertaken by our beneficiaries and the work they do with young people. We are also very mindful that we need actively to seek to embrace the opportunity to connect, engage and empower those who are not currently involved in EU programmes so that they too can build their own projects and enjoy opportunities such as Erasmus+, the European Solidarity Corps and many other national and local youth opportunities. For them, the European Year of Youth has so much potential and, as I said, we in Léargas are very mindful of the responsibility we hold as national co-ordinator for the year. It is a responsibility we recognise as very important now and, as our previous speakers have said, very important for our future.

We are part of a network of national co-ordinators across Europe, which is comprised of organisations like Léargas that are called "national agencies", youth councils and ministries. In early January, each national co-ordinator had to submit a work plan for the year at national level to the European Commission. We are still awaiting its feedback to see if it wants any additional activities or improvements to that plan. Therefore, some of the things we might talk to members about today are still pending approval, but we will be ready to develop and deliver those activities in earnest as soon as we possibly can.

Some of the activities include the convening of a steering group that was previously mentioned. That is comprised of individuals, organisations and representatives who can help to inform, guide and support the actions of the national co-ordinator through the year. We also aim to establish a micro grants scheme to distribute small grants at grassroots level for locally organised groups of young people to develop youth-led activities and events that can promote the priorities and opportunities for the year. Léargas will host specific and targeted European Year of Youth events across Ireland to attract young people and to help them find out more about how they can participate and discover new opportunities for themselves. We also plan, naturally, to leverage the network of current beneficiaries of Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps programmes and our other networks to engage with the year. They can do that by taking part in events, developing their own events and branding existing events, all with a view to enhance the visibility of the year and its objectives.

For 2022, the European Commission has invested in the European Year of Youth. The budget available to Ireland for the co-ordination role of the European Year of Youth is €143,000. It is worth noting that in 2022 we estimate a bursary of approximately €23 million will be available to Irish organisations under the Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes. That is something to look forward to.

I will hand over to my colleague Ms Emma Grainger, who will talk the committee through the rest of our plans.

Ms Emma Grainger

Of course, at the centre of all those plans, as we have heard from our colleagues in the NYCI as well, are the most important voices of all, which are the voices of the young people themselves.

At an event that was hosted just last week by the European Commission Representation in Ireland and European Movement Ireland, one of our members of the steering committee, Mr. Harry McCann, who is also a member of the pool of European young journalists, quoted Archimedes to illustrate the importance of a young person’s role in this process, “Give me a place to stand, with a lever long enough, and I will move the whole world.”

We in Léargas see that as a significant part of our role as national co-ordinators in creating this place to stand for young people and those working with them. In European Year of Youth, we want to shine a spotlight on all of the spaces and ways that young people can individually and collectively express themselves. We want to do this, in part, by creating a hub of easily accessible activities under the banner of European Year of Youth. We want to create new opportunities at grassroots level to bring more young people into that spotlight and support them to see different paths to improve their participation. We want to work with our amazing partners, youth organisations, arts and sports groups, as well as schools, to reach all of the sectors that are passionate about the empowerment of young people and make sure young people can access the information and opportunities they need. Most significantly, we want to direct that spotlight onto the spaces that are not always seen. We want to make sure the European Year of Youth is focused on inclusion and diversity and actively seeks out young people who feel unconnected or not involved or who do not believe Europe is speaking to or holds anything for them.

In Léargas, we know from experience that doing an Erasmus+ youth exchange, building a youth participation project in your community, having the chance to volunteer through the European Solidarity Corps or exploring Europe with a programme such as DiscoverEU, are powerful tools for personal development. We have seen that the growth that takes place through these activities is truly transformational.

As national co-ordinator for the European Year of Youth, Léargas would like to ensure young people and those working with them are empowered in their rights to express themselves and their ideas. Young people are already active in expressing themselves on important issues such as climate, equality, mental health, housing and education, to name but a few. A European Year of Youth can help ensure a legacy of action and engagement with decision-makers in the policy areas and topics that are crucial for young people as full and active citizens.

I thank the committee and we are happy to take any questions.

I thank Ms Gilligan and Ms Grainger for their contribution. Once again, it gives us a lot of food for thought and certainly gives us an insight into different funding streams and different works.

We will move on to the members. I make a dual plea, directed at the questioners and the people answering the questions, to please be concise and clear, with brevity at the heart of it, so we can have a robust conversation over and back.

I thank all of our presenters for their contributions. I will stick to the Chair's instructions on the basis that Deputy Ó Murchú does too. I am intrigued by the low levels of optimism picked up in Eurofound's research. Is that predominantly Covid related or how much would that be related to other issues, for instance, the issue of climate and how that impacts on young people?

As we transition into a new phase of Covid, how much of a role will climate and climate change play in the various initiatives that will be rolled out for the European Year of Youth? That is a question for all our guests. How much of that funding is ring-fenced for climate initiatives? In my day-to-day work with young people, I find that climate is one area in which they are more engaged than most other sectors of the community.

Mr. McNulty said that the notion of a Year of Youth was a surprise to him. He spoke about a European bubble but there is not much awareness beyond the Leinster House bubble this morning that this is the European Year of Youth. How are we going to rescue that? I ask the representatives from Léargas to answer that question. I do not blame Léargas but this seems to have been landed on a lot of people. If someone as engaged as our NYCI representative is surprised by it, I can imagine the general populace is as well. We are in the last week of February. Will there be some sort of big initiative to raise awareness of this through our schools and colleges as we move towards the back end of the academic year? I want to get an idea of how we are going to grab people's attention.

The Irish mental health figures are 6% lower than the EU average. Could Mr. Kalfin dig into that and dive into it a little bit more?

The Deputy raised a number of questions there. There was a specific question directed at Mr. Kalfin relating to the research and then three or four questions for all three organisations. I will start with Mr. Kalfin.

Mr. Ivailo Kalfin

I thank Deputy Calleary for the questions. I will be very brief in answering them. Looking at the age groups, the optimism among young people in Ireland is a bit lower than the other age groups. At the same time, the level of optimism in Ireland overall is much higher than in other EU member states. We see the same phenomenon across Europe in that young people are a bit less optimistic because they have a number of challenges. I mentioned already that they were particularly hit by this Covid crisis before they had recovered from the previous crisis. They face challenges with job security, access to housing and career prospects.

We have done extensive research on teleworking and remote working and I was surprised to learn that young people have the most stress when working remotely. Normally, young people are much more familiar with all the technologies etc. but the problem is that they do not feel part of the community at work. They are not secure in how their work is appreciated and they do not know what their career development will be. Many of them have small children to raise at home and teleworking creates additional problems there. All of these factors impact both optimism and mental health and create psychosocial risks for young people. Young people are resilient but we have to take into consideration that this crisis has created higher stress levels for them and they have to cope with those stress levels. That is very clear in our research.

On the European Year of Youth, I cannot agree more that it has to be more visible. The idea of the European Year of Youth is to see and spotlight the problems of young people. Eurofound is known across Europe as the Dublin foundation. We are based in Ireland and we try to be helpful to our host country and the institutions. We will be active on Europe Day on 9 May and will host an open-door day. Everybody is invited, including the committee members and people from their constituencies. We already have some agreements with young people from universities. We want to be able to present more information about young people across Europe, not only in Ireland. Of course, the information and data we are collecting are entirely at the committee's disposal. Whenever any members would like to have some more information, we would be more than happy to provide it.

Mr. Mark McNulty

I thank Deputy Calleary for his questions. I will address the question on climate anxiety. I know it was not directed at me but it is something we have talked about recently within the NYCI. One cannot get through a large group meeting about topics that worry young people without talking about climate. It is an intersectional issue that crosses over into so many other areas and young people are very worried about it, both with regard to their own futures, what their own lives will be like and whether there is a point because of that feeling of impending doom, but also for the future of others, including people in the global south and so forth. That is something about which young people are very worried so I wanted to address that.

On the matter of the European Year of Youth being a surprise, it was a surprise in the context of the announcement made by the European Commission, not in how it has been addressed on either a national or European level by agencies since then. The announcement was made late last year. Other years have two or three years of planning and sometimes longer. There is an opportunity now to work and to try to make this year as good as possible but it is important to highlight that it was a surprise to absolutely everyone and everyone has done their best in a very short amount of time.

Ms Emma Grainger

I will just pick up on what Mr. McNulty spoke about and the slight delay with regard to the European Year of Youth. As has been pointed out, we are now at the end of February. How will we ensure this event is pronounced across the year? We are at the beginning. It is unfortunate that we are not starting at the beginning of the year but, as we mentioned earlier, we are hopeful that our work plan, and the events that are part of that, will soon be approved by the European Commission. The focus is on getting the word out there as much as we can with existing networks, as well as establishing new networks. We will be encouraging our beneficiaries to badge everything as the European Year of Youth to create a bit of interest and ensure the wording gets out there and people know where to go for more information. Ms Gilligan mentioned the micro-grants earlier. We are hoping to target those at beneficiaries that we may have had no contact with previously, such as small and informal groups of young people. In that way, we will get the message out beyond the large youth organisations we already work with. We are hoping to create a lot of buzz around the national and regional events for young people. We hope to have at least 600 young people taking part in face-to-face events across the country, as well as all the online events we are going to be running. Although we will be starting late, we are confident that we can create a bit of a buzz about it and get the word out there.

Ms Lorraine Gilligan

Ms Grainger has covered our plans for reach and trying to make the tentacles of the European Year of Youth get out into areas that are not always obvious for us in our work, as well as general engagement.

Deputy Calleary asked whether there is a ring-fenced fund under the European Year of Youth, or other EU programmes like Erasmus+ or the European Solidarity Corps, ESC, for climate issues. While there is no particular ring-fencing, sustainability and the fight against climate change is one of a number of priorities specifically set out in both of those EU programmes. That cascades through policies like the European youth strategy that was mentioned earlier. It is a topic that has been of huge concern to young people and they are very engaged and active on it. Many of the projects that apply to Léargas for funding under Erasmus+ or the ESC find that young people are very activated and engaged by issues like climate change.

The other issues that are of priority for us for this year and in the programmes we are delivering relate to delivering a more inclusive and diverse programme. We want to reach newcomers and get young people who do not see this project or Erasmus as an opportunity for them engaged and help them identify the different opportunities they have.

There is a great grassroots youth work network supported by the National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, which is active and engaged in that area.

The other priorities are around digital, as was referenced by our colleagues in Eurofound. Young people have experienced challenges around remote working over the past couple of years. There are assumptions that young people are digitally ready but there are some means of engagement that cannot be delivered through that kind of a format. One does not necessarily feel the connection or belonging that is intended as part of these kinds of engagements. The legacy part of the European Year of Youth will be developed through activities and engagement, bringing people together and helping them to find connection and feel empowered.

It is a fantastic note that we have these bubbles of decision-making in the Dáil or in Brussels. It is wonderful to be invited to talk about it today and I hope we can maintain this connection and interest throughout this year and beyond. We already know young people are asking for things through the 25 Percent project and asking for a youth check. Perhaps next year we could have a more organised approach at European level and call for a European year of mental health or a European year for climate change. Legacy elements can be communicated and developed through this year and we might need to come back to the committee for support in order to bring them into action.

I am grateful for the time. I hope I have answered the Deputy's questions.

I thank Ms Gilligan and Deputy Calleary. I am going to change the order of contributors. I beg the indulgence of Deputy Ó Murchú but Deputy Harkin is under a bit of time pressure. Would Deputy Ó Murchú agree to facilitate Deputy Harkin at this stage?

Is Deputy Harkin ready to go?

I am. I did not expect that. I thank the Chairman. I am due to speak in the Dáil Chamber in a little while. It is always good to listen to the debate before contributing, as we all know. I thank our guests for their presentations. I agree with Deputy Calleary that the European Year of Youth has crept up on us. That is unfortunate because, as we all know, if we were well prepared, we could make the most of it but we are where we are, as they say.

Given we are now towards the end of February, perhaps the committee, Léargas and the NYCI could look at how this committee could play a role in helping to get the word out. Today's meeting is obviously important but I wonder is there anything else we can do. I do not want to speak for the committee but that is just a thought that struck me.

I have one or two questions. I thank our colleagues from Eurofound. I listened to Mr. Kalfin's presentation and he spoke about the Youth Guarantee and how the numbers of people not in employment, education or training, so-called NEETs, had decreased between 2013 and 2019 but obviously with the impact of Covid-19, that trend has been reversed. Before the pandemic, that initiative was obviously a success. Has Mr. Kalfin any information on the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund? The most recent iteration of the fund included NEETs. If, for example, a country was applying to the fund for 250 workers who had lost their jobs, it could include the same number of NEETs. That was a significant change. Has the fund played any role? Perhaps Mr. Kalfin does not have any information on that. It could play a role in the future, given what Mr. Kalfin has told us today.

Mr. McNulty form the NYCI talked about his hopes and expectations for the year. He talked about meaningful engagement, which is obviously important. What does Mr. McNulty see as the practical outcomes of this year? Does the council have any targets? What is it working towards? I will direct the same question to Léargas. What do our guests hope to see at the end of this year or at this time next year as an outcome or outcomes from this year? I recognise we are talking about lowering ring-fenced funding. I think I heard a figure of €143,000 for Léargas, which is tiny money. I am not putting our guests under pressure with this question. I am just asking for their perspectives.

Mr. McNulty also mentioned youth-proofing. He mentioned a youth check, which I presume is the same as youth-proofing, though I am not sure. That sounds a very good idea and a good outcome would be for that to be stitched through policy. Has Mr. McNulty any further thoughts on that?

What do Ms Gilligan and her colleagues in Léargas see as the contribution of the European Solidarity Corps? I was a Member of the European Parliament when we amended the legislation establishing that programme. We had high hopes for it and I wonder how it is working out. Our guests are the people who know how it plays out on the ground.

The issue of climate change was mentioned and this year might be an opportunity for young people to get involved. Do our guests see this year as an opportunity for young people in that regard? Obviously raising awareness is important but are there any practical programmes that people can get their teeth into and through which they can get their hands dirty, as it were? That way, young people could feel they are not just being consulted and informed, important as those things are, but that they are also participants and actors, in the best sense of the word.

I was pleased to hear that this year will be an opportunity for young people who do not see themselves participating in programmes such as Erasmus to get involved. I know from my experience as a teacher and a Member of the European Parliament that Erasmus does not reach those who feel it is not for them, despite the real effort that has been made, which I understand and acknowledge. I was delighted to hear that is part of the programme.

I have rambled a bit but there is a lot of very good stuff here. Perhaps the committee can assist with some of it but that is for another day. I thank our guests again for their presentations. It is nice to have a bit of brightness on a February morning.

We all agree with that. I will start with our guests from Léargas, for whom a couple of the questions were intended.

Ms Lorraine Gilligan

I have noted a couple of the Deputy's questions but if I miss anything she asked, she might redirect me. I will try to cover everything. I will first speak to the Deputy's question about practical action, especially around climate change and engaging young people directly in activity, which is important. Talking and thinking about these things are important but feeling it and being involved as a participant is essential. I know the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is this week inviting applications from youth organisations for funding under the youth climate justice fund. That might be of interest to people listening to the debate. The Department will communicate that invitation more broadly this week. That will have a new emphasis in 2020 on young people with fewer opportunities to try to engage and have a broader reach into the full and wider community.

The Deputy also asked about the European Solidarity Corps, which resonates, in some ways, as a surprise. If the Deputy was a Member of the European Parliament at the time, she will know it was an initiative of the then President of the European Commission. The programme was built on the bones of an existing action to encourage volunteering by young people within Erasmus+. The programme had been up and running for 20 years at that stage.

What I can tell the Deputy about the journey of the solidarity corps is that at the outset there was a lot of investment and great ambition for the European Solidarity Corps. Some areas of the programme as it was originally designed were much more engaging for organisations and young people than others. We have a programme now that does not include the original work placement idea. That is being delivered separately through the ALMA - aim, learn, master, achieve - initiative that was referenced by our colleagues in Eurofound. This is a much more youth, community, civic organisations-focused programme and it supports young people to live in, work with and experience communities and cultures across Europe as they volunteer in organisations and communities on issues such as climate change, social justice or mental health issues. They are involved in many different organisations in Ireland and across the EU.

Another wonderful initiative of that programme, and I thank the people who supported it, is the solidarity projects. They are projects that can happen at local level. They are designed, developed and implemented by the young people who are living in that community. There are quite a lot of those types of projects at present, focused on areas such as mental health, equality, climate justice, social justice in the areas of direct provision and various other similar issues. Many young people are involved in those projects. The last thing I will say on that is that in the European Solidarity Corps we see quite high participation rates for young people with fewer opportunities, which is how we try to measure our reach into more inclusive and more diverse areas of co-operation and partnership.

I hope that covers the questions the Deputy asked. If not, I am happy to follow up.

Mr. Mark McNulty

I thank the Deputy for her questions. NYCI would be happy to make members of the committee aware of anything we are hosting relating to the European Year of Youth or anything in the future that may be of relevance in a European context. The Deputy mentioned meaningful engagement and practical outcomes for this year. One of them is the idea of youth-proofing or a youth check or youth testing - it is called many things. The youth test was referred to by the European Youth Forum because it had a specific policy idea and a way of carrying that out at European level, but obviously it applies down to national level also. That is something we would like to see.

Additionally, something that has already been achieved or almost achieved this year at European level by the European Youth Forum is a ban on unpaid internships. It has had some recent successes both in terms of litigation it has taken at European level and also in terms of securing guarantees from national governments to ban unpaid internships, which is a substantial benefit for youth this year. The other item we would like to see, in addition to that youth test, youth check or however one wishes to refer to it, is engagement with Europe and with national politicians with an interest in Europe or MEPs in a meaningful way, and allowing young people's voices to be heard at all those levels.

The Deputy also mentioned climate change. There needs to be a policy focus on lobbying in this area from the youth sector. The European Youth Forum, which is our representative body in Europe, last year adopted its first policy programme and about a quarter of that was related to climate issues. That tells how much of a focus there is within the sector on this. It needs to come back to young people and enabling them to engage in conversations about climate change and other aspects of that area.

I will briefly address Erasmus+. I was at an event with European Movement Ireland last week where I was facilitating. I was around a table with eight or nine students from University College Cork, UCC. One had been in Erasmus but all the others said they felt it was inaccessible or they were coming from backgrounds where they could not afford it or their parents could not give them a nest egg to go and the like. Some of it is breaking down the barriers of fear and making sure people are informed, but also some of it is making sure it actually reaches, and that the funding is appropriate for, people who need it. That has to happen at European level, but we also need those young people's voices feeding in at national level to say, "I could not go and here is the reason". By the time policy change happens it will not benefit them, but it might benefit people a few years behind them or their children.

I am happy to follow up further if I have not fully addressed Deputy Harkin's questions.

Mr. Ivailo Kalfin

In terms of visibility, our humble experience shows that the very interest of this committee in the European Year of Youth is already increasing the visibility. This is what we have seen and we will be happy to work further with individual Deputies and Senators on different strands and issues. We continue our research and we can help with knowledge and data. We even have very good conference facilities here in Dublin. These issues should be visible and seen, and our involvement with the committee and its members is very welcome.

The Deputy asked a question about the globalisation fund. This is the fund which is supposed to help the transition after companies close down as a result of globalisation. I have to go back to my years when I was serving in the European Parliament together with Deputy Harkin and working on these issues. Unfortunately, there is no ring-fencing for young people and especially for NEETs in the use of the globalisation fund under the European regulations. However, this might be a policy at national level. I would add not only the globalisation fund but also the whole green transition, the green social fund which is currently being discussed in the European institutions, and the national recovery and resilience plans that are submitted. A national policy could rely on EU funding to address the issues of young people. Clearly, and this is what our research shows, they are one of the candidates to have dedicated, special policies and eventually a ring-fenced budget for them.

I thank the witnesses from the three organisations. In fairness, there is agreement around the fact that the European Year of Youth is probably not well known in the real world and there is an onus on all of us to play our part in highlighting it. Beyond that, it needs to be something more than thinking of the young people. There has to be something substantial relating to it. The witnesses are talking about trying to engage those on the periphery or those who are at a remove. That is always very difficult. When we talk about Eurofound, working conditions and so forth, I believe there is a wider piece of work that must be done at a societal level. We all have failed across Europe and in this State if we are talking about the need for family supports and community supports that can help families and communities that are on the periphery, where people do not necessarily have the agency and connections that many of us have growing up. There are many roadmaps to education these days that might not have existed previously, such as post-leaving certificate, PLC, courses and the like, but there are many people who are utterly removed from that. It is a piece of work that needs to be done across the board. That is one of the issues.

The other issue which must be taken into account, and this is accepting all that has been said about the difficulties young people have been through, is the drugs pandemic, an issue we were dealing with in the Dáil yesterday, and the impact it has on young people in particular. It is all-pervasive. That ranges from people who become problem drug users through to the impact that can have on their wider families and the intimidation, criminality and all the rest of it. We are asking for a citizens' assembly to take place in this State as soon as possible. It is an absolute necessity. However, many experts would say that if this is an issue that is going to tackled properly, it would have to be dealt with at European level.

I accept this might be outside the remit of the witnesses, but they are two major issues that I want to put forth while I have them in front of me.

We will go Mr. Kalfin again, if he would like to start off.

Mr. Ivailo Kalfin

I thank the Deputy for the question. These are indeed very important questions. When we look at the problems, we stratify them by age groups, by social position, by gender, etc. In our research, one could find much cross-cutting analysis and data. This is where we stop. We then provide this to the decision makers, such as those present, who can take it on board when making the political decisions. The Deputy is absolutely right. We have gone across this. If we want to support marginalised parts of our society, or those that are at risk of marginalisation, we need to go into the living environments, into the families and into the social circles. We have several such research-----

Mr. Ivailo Kalfin

Poverty is very important. We are now engaging in research on the green transition. Normally, when we speak about green transition, everybody talks about reskilling and upskilling. However, the problem with the needs is that a number of people, including young people, are not interested. Just because there is an offer of reskilling somewhere, it does not mean that everybody, including young people, are going to jump and say, “Yes, we are upskilling and we will start a new profession”.

They are well removed from this. That is the problem.

Mr. Ivailo Kalfin

Exactly.

It is about doing those pieces of work that will bring them closer to that point where they are open to it. It is a big body of work.

Mr. Ivailo Kalfin

This is what we try to find in the research. What would motivate them to go? We are engaged in a topic of research about how the green transition would impact regional income distribution. It is very important. It has to do with the living environment, with the incomes at the regional level, with where we live and with how the green transition would eventually impact all of that. Of course, we will try to look into the future, by using some foresight methods and by drafting different scenarios. Then again, we will try to identify the issues. Certainly, they will need some political decisions.

The Deputy is absolutely right that we should not look at the average figures only. That is what we try to do because if we create pockets of poverty or of marginalised people, our society is not doing well. That is something we try to do. We are speaking about young people today. However, we have quite a lot of research on the world of work, on employment, on quality of work, on quality of life and on social dialogue.

As for the other issues the Deputy raised, we would be happy to provide him with more information and to follow up on these issues.

Mr. Mark McNulty

I will address the question about engaging those who are on the periphery, because the drugs issue, to be honest, is not my area of expertise at all.

When it comes to engaging people on the periphery, as well as keeping people out of engaging in problem behaviour around drugs, youth work is key. That needs to be sold and said multiple times here. The majority of people who benefit from member organisations of NYCI, by a good majority, although I do not have the statistics to hand, are from disadvantaged areas. When you look at how we engage them, it has already been done through youth work. We just need to invest in that, continue to widen that, as well as widen the number of people who have access to that. There is clear case for that. For every euro invested in youth work, approximately €5 is saved by the State in the long run. There are a number of studies to back that up.

It is important to point out that those who excel at the highest level in the National Youth Council of Ireland, those who have become involved, who have stayed involved and who have gone on to amazing things often come from disadvantaged areas. However, the opportunities are there at the community level. People come into youth centres in their local areas.

I accept all of what Mr. McNulty said. It is a great benefit to anybody. I have seen the fabulous work that is being done by the likes of NYCI and others. However, I would also say that sometimes they get the low hanging fruit, for want of a better term. It is those who are engaged and who are coming from engaged families. There is a bigger piece of work that needs to be done. In fairness, it would need to be done probably long before the NYCI would even be dealing with the age profiles that it is dealing with.

Mr. Mark McNulty

I would agree with that to an extent. Invariably, there will be people who will always engage. You have that in any community group or in any community involvement. There is also outreach that takes place in member organisations of NYCI that is really well done. Sometimes it comes down to really simple solutions. Some people do not get involved because they feel like they would not be welcome. It is about saying, "This is what this involves and how you become involved in doing it”. It is, therefore, a simple thing. I have worked with organisation in the past where young people have to travel to be involved. They have to go on public transport and they just cannot afford it. If an organisation is able to afford to pay for that up front, that could change who will get involved overnight. I have seen it. Of course, there will be people and families who value that and who will become involved. Equally, there will be families that do not. The children from those families get involved anyway, because of outreach in their community, especially through youth workers.

Ms Lorraine Gilligan

These are huge social issues. From our perspective in Léargas, they are a bit beyond our brief in some ways. However, in response, I can reinforce what was just said in relation to youth work, as well as in relation to the relationship building that happens between youth workers and young people, especially in communities that experience challenges from criminality, drug use or other antisocial behavioural issues.

We have quite a significant uptake from youth workers and youth organisations who are working in support of those communities. They take part in Erasmus activities and they engage many of their young people in their exchange activities, their international activities and the activities that they do at a very local level. We see the progression of the on-the-ground work, as well as the investment that goes into that relationship building with teachers, youth workers and tutors. It comes into our programme at a certain point. However, it does take a long time. It requires that investment and funding is in place to cover the additional costs and the additional work and additional hours that need to be invested for that progression to happen and for those organisations to deliver on the work that they are doing.

From our perspective, we can speak to and show evidence of our actions in inclusion and diversity. We have a dedicated staff member who works with organisations and who engages with organisations well before they ever get involved in Erasmus activities or in European solidarity core activities. This is to help them to figure out what that progression route might be for them and for their young people. That is an investment that we make with our own resources and it works really well. I can happily report that in the previous Erasmus programme, we were able to record an average - across all of the different areas of the programme that we can record - of 45% of the participants in the programme were young people or those with fewer opportunities.

Like others, I genuinely applaud and thank the three organisations that are represented. It is an important educational experience for us all.

It is a little disconcerting that we are now heading into March and, as Ms Grainger told us, the work plan has not yet been approved by the Commission. It is almost as if we are going to do youth at the last minute without having the normal preparation for a programme that begins with fanfare on 1 January. That is the normal way that things happen with an evolving programme for the full year.

I am not clear on the Commission's perspective. I do not expect any of the witnesses here to be able to tell me what exactly are it aims and objectives, or what designation it is expected to achieve this year, other than for it to encompass youth and reach out, etc.

I want to specifically follow up on Deputy Ó Murchú’s questions, which are important. We are all concerned about the issue of a marginalised youth. There are many young people, and many older people, too, who would bluntly glaze over at the European acronyms. You could probably talk to any young or old person about Aim, Learn, Master, Achieve, ALMA, or not in employment, education or training, NEETs, and they would not have a clue what you were talking about.

We get into jargonisms with all these discussions.

Turning to specific questions, for decades we have been looking at matters such as youth unemployment. We have progressed a youth guarantee. I know Eurofound can only provide data but the statistics indicate we have not really made great progress and the unemployment rate of young people is still significantly more than older people. There is what used to be called unattached youth, which is more than simply those NEETs not involved with education and training but rather people not involved with anything, including youth work or anything else. I am a great believer in the power of effective youth work in vulnerable communities. I applaud Mr. McNulty and the National Youth Council of Ireland for what it has done.

Specifically, what more can we offer to ensure that more people understand what is available and that the Erasmus+ programme is not just for those who are connected? There is the occasional view of people being from a disadvantaged community when, by and large, they are not. Even Mr. McNulty spoke of a group of university students who could not avail of it and the fact they are university students means they are already a privileged subset of younger people in the country. Do any of our witnesses wish to address the question of how to encompass more young people in the projects and programmes available under the auspices of the European Union? How could we penetrate more deeply into the vulnerable communities that have correctly been underscored by Deputy Ó Murchú? Many of the people we deal with have no notion of any of the matters we have discussed and how they could affect their daily lives.

This has a political undertone as well in that the arguments of many Brexiteers and much of the fundamentalism we are hearing comes from a feeling that these institutions are meaningless in their lives. We must do something about that. If we are going to focus on young people, how, specifically in this year, can we in this committee or the Oireachtas take some small steps to address those matters?

Mr. Mark McNulty

I thank the Deputy for his questions. On the Commission's perspective when it was announced, it is still kind of unclear. When it was announced it was very difficult at a European level to find any information about what would happen, how and when, as well as what funding would be available and whether it would be new funding or just relabelled old funding. We did not know how it would look. That has become a bit more clear and there is a website and things like that now.

They are scrambling to catch up in a way.

Mr. Mark McNulty

It is still a little aspirational and like a bit of a mission statement when it should be more clear at this stage. Moving to another point, we are trying to put a shape on it ourselves at a national level and within different organisations. We are trying to make people aware of it and this would be much easier if it had been led from a European level. If towards the end of the year it is led from that European level it will be much easier to do with such outreach. That outreach is important not only within this year but going forward.

I recently met MEPs and had an acronym thrown at me and I could not tell members what it meant. The Deputy mentioned the acronyms as well. I had to ask about the meaning and I am very engaged with European issues. I attended another event recently with a round table of other students and qualified majority voting, QMV, came up. Nobody around the table knew what it meant, let alone what it involved. At the most basic level, the EU should have outreach so that every young person understands such matters. There have been some calls for this to be done in schools but it still needs to be done later because there are people in their early 20s and late teens who do not understand how all this works. There is an opportunity this year to provide education around that.

On access to Erasmus+, there should not just be access to the programme in the sense of college but rather it should be in the sense of other opportunities as well. The National Youth Council of Ireland is keenly involved with Erasmus+ projects. In October I was in Luxembourg meeting 13 other youth councils on different issues we are facing, speaking about policy areas, etc. It was done through Erasmus+ and it would not have been possible otherwise. Some councils that are well-funded might have the money but others just do not. It is important to protect that funding at a European level. We should also advertise it so more organisations - and not just the big organisations - go after that funding every single time. The application process is quite difficult and many organisations worry about getting approval and putting out money. It is important that Erasmus+ is looked at this year and we make sure every single organisation, large and small, can get it in that context. It should also be accessible to young people.

Going back to the wider point, this is about outreach and approachability. It is about really making sure we can get to as many people as possible. The EU should not be a big black box, of which everyone is wary. It will be a big challenge this year, especially where we are now, as members know. If we want to speak about a good outcome at the end of the year, every young person should be aware of one more thing about the EU. That would not be a terribly ambitious outcome to look for and it would be meaningful. There is a great lack of awareness out there.

Ms Gilligan looks very interested in coming in.

Ms Lorraine Gilligan

I will not repeat much of what has been said about how youth work is serious in its approach to really engaging different communities. It is really important to acknowledge that although it is challenging to handle a European year of youth so quickly, I feel much appreciation to the Commission for moving so fast to respond to the crisis that young people are in and, I suppose, the evidence that young people have been so severely affected by Covid-19. If it had been planned for two more years, other experiences would have to come into play. With the optimism in Léargas as we try to approach being the national co-ordinator for the European year, we have it now and the initiative is a response to a specific experience that young people have been exposed to.

There are priorities attached to the year and I can provide those in follow-up communications. They are in our submission documents if the committee wants to refer to them but I will not go into them now. There is a strategy for us as a national co-ordinator for the year in terms of legacy. As Ms Grainger said, we are not starting with an agenda for what this year will achieve. We have our steering group and our outreach activities. We want to provide the space for the kinds of messages that young people are prioritising to become the legacy. It would be fantastic if this committee could remain engaged and we can follow up or check in with it in six months and let it know where things are at and the messages coming through. It would help to focus some other policy areas that are under review.

Our colleagues in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth have been very active and supportive in helping us convene a steering committee and get people on board. I feel we have a very good representative group of people that can help us achieve the best we can with the year and the investment that comes along with it.

Mr. Ivailo Kalfin

I thank the Deputy for the very good questions. Everything we do must have a result and that is what motivates all of us in working from different angles in different institutions. We are trying to contribute to some positive movement.

The Deputy is absolutely correct that speaking to a marginalised young person about NEETs, ALMA and Erasmus+ may not make sense. We need the policymakers to know the position. When we measure the percentage of needs of young people, it may not be to tell those marginalised young people their needs; that might be perceived as something offensive. This should be for policymakers and we see very clear problems and issues. In many countries they are addressed.

In other countries, they are much less so. What we can bring as an additional measure is to exchange good and bad experience across the European Union and see how each country deals with that. To deal with the problems of marginalised young people, you need the education system and the health system. You need a number of national systems, in particular, that have to engage and target these problems. This is very much away from the competencies of the European Union. Of course, the European Union could help with all these problems, including with the support to mitigate unemployment risks in an emergency, SURE, instrument because it very much attenuated the impact on employment with Covid-19, allowing member states to be a little bit more generous in terms of supporting closing businesses, etc. This was very important for young people. This is a very efficient measure, but it is only one measure. Solving this issue and bringing these people towards active work in the community needs much more than that. By the way, the percentage of needs in Ireland today is a little above the average European Union. The average European Union is 14%. It was 16.1% two years ago. In Ireland it is 14.1%. That is exactly European Union average. Across Europe this is 10 million people. In Ireland, as you can imagine, 14% is quite a substantial percentage. Two thirds of them are, as you say, people who are not interested and they do not go to the labour office. They do not seek jobs. Now they have some other opportunities, and this is also an area for research. They can go to the green economy. Some of them go to what they call the "platform economy" or the gig economy. They can deliver food or something like that, but unfortunately, it is very often without working conditions. It is unpaid work with no breaks and no regulation at all. They find ways to make their lives, which are in the grey area, which is not regulated and which we do not see. We need to shed a light on these problems. There is enough information. There are some instruments that would come from the European level but, in most cases, this is national policy, because you need to engage all these massive systems in order to address these people.

I thank Mr. Kalfin, Ms McCaughey, Mr. Mark McNulty, Ms Gilligan and Ms Grainger for coming here today. This has been a useful conversation. It is the first conversation we have had in the committee. If there are avenues that we could go down to keep the conversation going, that would be important. As Mr. McNulty pointed out, he referenced the Brussels bubble and Deputy Callery mentioned the potential Dublin bubble at Leinster House. However,there is also a bubble at local and regional levels. We need to try to help all those great organisations that are doing that work on the ground at grass roots level, whether it is Foróige, youth services or other voluntary agencies. A committee member will be happy to help.

I am reminded of a youth group from Lifford about a quarter of a century ago standing on a stage in Letterkenny with placards which read "Why speak when nobody listens". To this day, it has been a most effective message from young people. It is not just about listening, it is also about participation. Following that conference in 1996, the Donegal Youth Council emerged and is still there. People from the council, like Ewan Sweeney and Janet Gaynor from the HSE really knew the importance of youth participation at a local level. Those different youth representatives at a local level have grappled with serious issues from bullying to youth suicide to simple measures, such as getting shelters at a bus depot for those going to school. They dug down at a local level. If there is a role we can play it at a national level in terms of trying to help at a regional level - the buzzword at European level is "subsidiarity" level, we are here to do that.

Go raibh maith agaibh uilig faoi choinne an phlé inniu agus an taighde atá déanta agaibh fosta ar son na ndaoine óga. Tá an rannpháirtíocht iontach tábhachtach faoi choinne na ndéagóirí, iad siúd atá scoite amach ón bpobal agus atá i mbaol fosta. Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe agus le baill an choiste.

The joint committee adjourned at 11.05 a.m. until 9.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 9 March 2022.
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