To ask the Minister of Education what assurance he will give that funding that was provided for the specific functions of the Youth Council will be protected once the Youth Council is subsumed into the Education Authority.

As set out in my Statement to the Assembly (10 December ) the funding provided to support the work of Regional Voluntary Youth Organisations will, from April 2016, be earmarked and routed through the Education Authority which will oversee its distribution and work in a new and constructive way with the Regional Voluntary Youth Organisations.

In terms of the overall budgetary position, Departmental budgets beyond 2015-16 are not yet available and I cannot, therefore, confirm at this stage if I will be in a position to maintain the current budget. However I will ring fence the budget for Voluntary youth work within the EA budget.