As you know, politicians work from a mandate given by the people who vote for them. They listen to the people from their local areas. We want to ensure that every TD in Ireland meets their local youth work organisation and hears from you how important youth work is in Budget 2024.
What to say?
The more personal communication is to TDs the better. If you can share the local experience of your youth work organisation, it will make a real impact.
We have a template email that you can use, which asks for a meeting and gets the key messages across. You can copy and paste this from the bottom of this page.
We have also created this briefing note to assist you in preparing for meetings.
Get your local representatives’ contact details now
Why contact all TDs and not just government parties?
We need the importance of investing in young people and youth work to be understood by all politicians. TDs all have different ways of influencing the budget, be it in Government, at Committees or in the Dáil. Opposition parties also produce their own alternative budgets and provide budget analysis. We need to make sure that our ask for young people and youth work is at the centre of all this work.
Help us by feeding back
If you contact your local representatives directly, we want to hear about it. Let us know who you contacted and how it went by emailing Grace@nyci.ie. Tell us things like who you contacted, what their response was and if any further information or follow up is required.
This will help NYCI as we continue our own campaign, by letting us know what areas have had a lot of contact, where might need more, and where we need to focus.
Template email to copy and customise
Please personalise if you have an existing relationship with a TD/Senator, and include an attachment of the NYCI Pre-Budget Submission 2024.
Dear Minister/Deputy [delete as appropriate],
I am writing to you on behalf of [insert organisation name], which operates in your constituency, to ask for your support for increased investment in young people and youth work, ahead of Budget 2024.
I’d be very grateful of a meeting to discuss this [indicate preference for online or in-person meeting and suggested dates/times] in the coming weeks.
[Insert some detail on your organisation and work you do -if not already known to TD/Senator – such as where you are based, type of group/project, number of young people involved etc.]
[Organisations/projects/groups (delete as appropriate)] like ours are dependent on funding from the Department for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to survive. To continue to serve the many young people our work benefits, increased funding for DCEDIY schemes is much needed.
Many organisations like [insert your organisation’s name] are struggling with increased social issues coming to our doors, as well as difficulties in recruitment and retention of staff. On top of this, the cost-of-living crisis is placing huge financial pressure on us, making it increasingly difficult to operate.
There will be a new Framework for Children and Young people, as well as the Action Plan for Youth Services to deliver on in 2024, but we need the resources to do this.
As our local TD, we are calling on you to work to ensure the Government provides investment in Budget 2024 to ensure youth work organisations, and the young people and communities we support, receive the sustainable investment we need.
As part of the National Youth Council of Ireland’s (NYCI) Youth Work Changes Lives campaign, we are calling an additional €9.4m investment in 2024. You can find details within the NYCI Pre-Budget Submission attached.
Once again, I would be most appreciative if you could take the time to meet with me to discuss this further, and you can respond by return e-mail, or by calling [08X XXXXXXX].
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
[Your name]