Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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292. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the status of the provision of a much needed dedicated youth officer for County Kildare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3444/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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My Department administers a range of funding schemes and programmes to support the provision of youth services to young people throughout the country including those from disadvantaged communities. The funding schemes support national and local youth work provision to some 380,000 young people and involve approximately 1,400 youth work staff in 477 projects and 40,000 volunteers working in youth work services and communities throughout the country. In 2016, funding of €51m was provided to my Department for these schemes. As the Deputy is aware, Budget 2017 has provided an additional €5.5m in current funding to my Department to support the provision of youth services. This will bring the total youth funding in 2017 to €57.4m. This additional funding will be used for programmes that target disadvantaged young people and to assist national youth organisations in their work to support local voluntary youth services. My Department is working with national organisations and local services to identify service development needs for 2017 and to agree the 2017 allocations. Every effort will be made to complete this process as soon as possible.

In 2016, an amount of €500,405 was allocated for the projects and services under Kildare Youth Services, which operates under Youth Work Ireland. My Department provides funding to Kildare Youth Services under the Special Projects for Youth Scheme in respect of six local youth projects in Athy, Naas, Leixlip, Newbridge, the Curragh and Kildare town and a Youth Information Centre in Naas.

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that my Department is currently engaging with Kildare Wicklow ETB with regard to the provision of a full time youth officer for County Kildare. In the interim, the county shares a youth officer with Wicklow, who is very active in both counties.