We must invest more in youth facilities
Planners and communities should learn about the kind of structures that are needed.
More resources are necessary so that voluntary organisations can attract young people by developing their programmes and expanding their membership.
While local authorities levy charges on developments, be it housing or whatever, some of them are very slow to allow funding from these charges to be spent on badly needed social/recreational and other infrastructural works, particularly in areas where major housing development is taking place.
The Government must correct this.
Better youth services will cost money. However, all the evidence shows that failure to develop them will also cost money.
Young people need constructive outlets for their energies and if they don’t have them, we all know what is likely to happen.
The energy that all too often smashes people or property must be diverted into an activity of value both to the individual concerned and, in the long term, to society as a whole.
Cllr Noel Collins,
‘St Jude’s’,
Midleton,
Co Cork.
