Laois’s receipt of the lowest funding in the state for youth services has been raised in the Dáil this week.
Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley raised the issue of low funding for youth services in Laois with Minister for Children & Youth Affairs, Katherine Zappone.
“I want to ask the Minister about funding for youth work at Laois Youth Centre. Laois has consistently received very low funding in this area.
“For example, in the current year it received €107,000 while Cavan received €333,000,” he said.
“The Minister said that funding is not allocated in proportion to the size of the youth population but based on income and disadvantage.
“In comparison to the other 25 counties, Laois has a low income figure per head of population. We also have a huge concentration of foreign nationals with many children whose first language is not English and this creates a lot of difficulties,” he said.
Of the €57.4 million in funding allocated to support youth services, Laois received just €86,000 which represents 0.15% of the total sum.
According to the census, the youth population in the county is growing rapidly.
Some 24.6% of the people living in the county are under 14 years of age and there has been a 26.3% increase in the youth population in the past ten years, Deputy Stanley stressed.
Investment
He was informed by the Minister that a mapping exercise carried out by Pobal, which shows how the social demographics have changed in a given area, potentially offers an opportunity for more investment.
“The Minister said that officials in County Laois are having meetings with her department, looking at how to support the best approach to accessing and making applications for grants and willing to continue to support the officers concerned to ensure their grant applications will ultimately be successful.
“Some areas in County Laois, including places such as Mountrath, Mountmellick and parts of Portlaoise and other towns almost have the lowest income figures in the State per head of population,” Deputy Stanley said.
Unsuccessful
“A total of 28 grant applications were received for the €100,000 approved for the ETBs. The Department approved 9 for targeted areas and the expansion of a further seven, but Laois was also unsuccessful in that regard.
“The local youth services, specifically Youth Work Laois, do tremendous work but an awful lot of their time is spent trying to access funding,” he said.
“I asked the Minister to look again at this issue and at County Laois, in particular, to ensure there is a fair distribution of funding,” Deputy Stanley said.
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