EARLY years and youth organisations have welcomed the decision by the Department of Education not to proceed with proposed cuts to their services.

The Department of Education made the announcement on Thursday. The proposed cuts would have impacted a range of Early Years programmes including the Pathway Fund, Sure Start, Bright Start and Toybox. The Department also confirmed that it would not be proceeding with the full scale of proposed cuts to Extended Schools.

The Education budget for 2023/24 has been cut by £66.4m (2.5%) compared to last year, which is an estimated funding gap of approximately £382m.

Various organisations across the city united to oppose the proposed cuts, taking to the streets to prevent losses to essential services.

South Belfast Irish language organisation An Droichead welcomed the news, stating that the proposed cuts to their Pathway and Bright Start funds would have resulted in a loss of over £50,000 per year. 

Chief Executive of An Droichead, Pól Deeds, said: “This is very welcome news. The effect these cuts would have across society doesn’t bear thinking about. Affordable childcare is essential if people are to be able to go out to work. While there seemed to be a clear recognition of this during the worst of the pandemic, with pro-active government initiatives to support the childcare sector, the appreciation of our importance seemed to evaporate in recent months as we were left staring once more into the abyss.

LE CHÉILE: Irish language organisations march to save essential services
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LE CHÉILE: Irish language organisations march to save essential services

“The Irish language childcare sector in particular was set to face the double whammy of years of underinvestment and negligence by government being compounded by these savage cuts to funding for salaries. And the fact that these services are needed to support the functioning and growth of the Irish medium education sector was also being forgotten. We need to keep up the campaigning and the pressure to ensure that whatever cuts are coming down the line aren’t once again directed at society’s most vulnerable families and children”.

Iveagh-based Irish language community and family centre, Ionad Uíbh Eachach, were also under threat, facing proposed funding cuts of £50,000. The centre organised a ‘Save Our Services’ demonstration on the Falls Road in protest last month.

lonad Uíbh Eachach said they were “incredibly grateful” for the solidarity shown by the Irish language community, the wider community sector, and friends and families.

In a statement, Ionad Uíbh Eachach said: “Although this provides us with some certainty to our funding to the end of the 2023/24 financial year, it illustrates the insecurity of the current funding environment where even the services catering to the most vulnerable in our society can be quickly disregarded in the name of ‘balancing the books.’

“This campaign has highlighted the need for ongoing long-term investment in community based Early Years provision and in particular in the Irish medium sector. We would emphasise that the monetary value of most of our funding has not increased in the past decade despite the fact that running costs continue to increase and the need for the holistic services such as those provided by lonad Uíbh Eachach is at an all-time high.

“We would like to take this opportunity to call on the Executive Departments, British Secretary of State, statutory bodies, stakeholders, and those with an interest in the future of our society to ensure that community-based early year’s services are prioritised and invested in. We would also ask that there are no further delays to the Childcare and Early-Learning strategy of which the specific needs of the early years Irish language community must be of high priority.”