Departmental Funding Seanad Éireann — 2026-10-01 ============================================================ Evanne Ní Chuilinn (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach I appreciate the sentiment coming from the Department. The Minister of State mentioned the UBU-funded projects. It is difficult to reconcile because there is some data there that suggests the Solas Project is among the lowest funded services relative to its size. Based on 2024 figures, 21 projects received a higher level of funding when measured against service size, with differences ranging from €2,000 to €23,000 per staff. The Minister of State mentioned data. We have data. The Pobal deprivation index that I mentioned earlier is telling us what is going on in that part of the city. Pobal is used over and over again to justify DEIS plus decisions, for example. I think the data is there and could be scrutinised a little more to look at what needs to happen in these parts of our cities. A mother from the Oliver Bond flats told me that young people are actively going out and committing small crimes to get a JLO so that they can get into some of the youth justice programmes. That is not a preventative model. We need to be accessing those young people before they are in the youth justice model and getting them into the youth projects such as the Solas Project. We should not have a situation whereby young people feel that the only way to get some sort of support in the community is to have a JLO to get access to a youth justice programme. I want to point out that these parts of our cities, and particularly this part of Dublin city, are falling behind in all the progress we were making socially in every other part of the country. We have seen young people getting involved in some of that dangerous driving and other activities as well. We need to access those young people before things get worse. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-10-01/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:01:00+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-10-01