Over the course of just two days in June, two separate Oireachtas Committees examining two very different policy challenges arrived at a strikingly similar conclusion: youth work matters, and it needs sustained investment.
The Joint Committee on Drugs Use, in its Final Report published on 24 June 2026, called for multi-annual funding for youth services to enable service expansion and improve the retention of essential youth work staff.
Just one day later, the Joint Committee on Children and Equality, in its Report on Child Poverty and Deprivation, recommended that youth work services be appropriately funded and youth workers fairly remunerated through multi-annual funding arrangements to increase access to community-based services.
These recommendations were made in the context of two distinct policy areas: drug use and addiction on the one hand, and child poverty and deprivation on the other. Yet both committees identified youth work as part of the response.
This should not be overlooked.
For many within the youth sector, the role of youth work in addressing complex social challenges is not a new discovery. Youth workers have long understood that poverty affects every aspect of a young person’s life: their wellbeing, educational engagement, opportunities, sense of belonging and ability to participate fully in society. Equally, the sector has consistently demonstrated its role in prevention, helping young people build resilience, strengthen relationships and make positive choices before problems become crises.
What is significant about these reports is that they represent political recognition of that reality. They are not statements from the youth sector advocating for itself; they are recommendations emerging from Oireachtas Committees after hearing evidence from experts, practitioners, organisations and young people themselves.
The Child Poverty and Deprivation Report is particularly noteworthy because it gives voice directly to children and young people. The Committee recorded that young people highlighted the importance of youth spaces and youth services, emphasising the role youth workers play in providing support, connection, new experiences and opportunities. Young people themselves told the Committee that investment should be made in youth services and safe spaces.
That is a powerful reminder that youth work is not simply a service delivered to young people; it is something young people themselves value and identify as important in their lives.
At a time when young people’s needs are becoming increasingly complex, this recognition matters. Across communities, youth workers are supporting young people through challenges related to mental health, social exclusion, family pressures, educational disadvantage, substance use and online harms. They are doing so in a world that is changing rapidly.
The settings in which youth work takes place may have evolved. The issues young people face certainly have. The workforce is being asked to work across more environments, respond to greater complexity and support increasingly diverse needs. Yet the foundations of good youth work remain unchanged. Relationships matter. Voluntary participation matters. Reflective practice matters. Belief in young people matters.
One thing also remains constant: the need to support young people as they navigate an increasingly complex and fast-changing information landscape.
This is why investment in youth work should be seen not as a cost, but as an investment in prevention, participation and positive outcomes. Youth work is, as we have always said, a preventative factor. It creates trusted spaces where young people can develop confidence, build skills, access support and strengthen their connections to their communities.
If we genuinely want to address child poverty, reduce harms associated with substance use, and create the conditions in which young people can thrive, then the infrastructure that supports young people must be strengthened.
The recommendations from these two Oireachtas Committees provide an important opportunity. They reinforce what youth organisations, youth workers and young people themselves have been saying for many years: youth work delivers value across multiple policy areas and should be recognised and resourced accordingly.
With two Oireachtas reports published in June highlighting the importance of youth work in tackling some of society’s most pressing challenges, it cannot be lost that the call for greater investment is no longer coming solely from within the sector. It is now being echoed within the Oireachtas itself.
The message is clear: if youth work is important enough to be identified as part of the response to both drug use and child poverty, then it is important enough to receive the sustainable, multi-annual investment needed to allow it to grow, innovate and continue transforming young people’s lives.