Member's statement: Youth Services: Funding
Member's statement by Mr Peter McReynolds on .
- MLA
- Mr Peter McReynolds
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 14 April 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Youth Services: Funding
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5481986
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Just before Easter recess, I attended what I can describe as a crisis meeting at Ledley Hall in east Belfast. The focus that night was the recent decision by the Education Minister to remove ring-fenced funding for youth services across Northern Ireland. That decision is an absolute catastrophe for youth services here, and the anger and tension in the room that night was clear for all to see. The decision puts Ledley Hall at risk and could close the doors of an organisation that has been operating in east Belfast for 80 years and impact on close to 1,600 youth organisations across Northern Ireland. What does that impact look like? It jeopardises support for over 165,000 young people who use those services each year as well as the volunteers and staff who prop them up. Following the meeting, I got home that night to urgently write to the Education Minister seeking an urgent meeting with Ledley Hall, the Youth Work Alliance and me to discuss the very real impact that his decision was going to have. Someone there that night told me not to get my hopes up, but I thought that it was a fairly standard request from an MLA to meet a Minister. For example, recently, the Infrastructure Minister met me with a day's notice. The Health Minister, just yesterday, met me about ADHD. Unfortunately, despite us advising in the request that we would make ourselves fully flexible due to his busy diary, he responded a week later that, on this occasion, he would be unable to attend, as if we had specified a date and time to meet when we had not. Quite frankly, I find that completely disrespectful to the issue at hand, to the concerns raised that evening and to the residents in the surrounding area that make regular use of Lesley Hall and other organisations like it. Research from Queen's University found that 73% of 10-year-olds and 79% of 16-year-olds identified youth clubs and centres as places where young people will always feel mostly respected. Their impact is proven across the world, but what we have here is what I heard from many that night: a Minister focused on academia, elitism and the upper class, forgetting that working-class communities who use those services deserve to have their children and communities supported and invested in as well. Farming this out to the Education Authority, with the budgetary pressures that it is already under, will not lead to the potential increase in budget that the Minister previously told me about during Education Question Time. Instead, youth services will be absorbed, looked over and then simply forgotten about. The independent review of education estimated that over £70 million should be put into youth services, yet their funding is now being gambled with. Youth services are not even asking for more money in this instance; instead, they are simply asking for their current level of ring-fenced funding to remain intact. I call on the Education Minister to urgently reverse the decision, to see the benefit of youth services and to meet Ledley Hall, Youth Work Alliance and me to hear how the decision — let us be clear that it is his decision — will affect services and families across Northern Ireland.
544 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not qualifying”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.17 (qualifying needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not qualifying).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.92).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.69).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-qualifying threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.11 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.09 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.05 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.27 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.19 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.92 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.17 | At or below not-qualifying threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.69 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.01 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.30 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.28 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.20 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.19 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.17 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.11 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9. This record has been assessed 2 times; the latest assessment is shown.
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