Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Shannon for his extremely enlightening report. There is a lot of information there for me to get my head around. I recently had a communication from the office of the Minister for Justice and Equality about this report. It stated that the then Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality and the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, agreed that a protocol would be signed between An Garda Síochána and Tusla on the operation of section 12 and that personnel from Tusla would be co-located at the national child protection unit at the Garda National Protective Services Bureau.

I also received an update from An Garda Síochána on both of these issues, the first being the signing of a protocol between An Garda Síochána and Tusla on the operation of section 12. It stated that following the development of a proposed agreed protocol between An Garda Síochána and Tusla on the operation of section 12, the Garda National Protective Services Bureau, GNPSB, had forwarded the document to policy development, implementation and monitoring, PDIM, for the section's consideration and that a response was expected from the PDIM in the near future after which such arrangements would be made for it to be signed.

On the second issue of the proposed co-location of Tusla personnel at the national child protection unit at the GNPSB, it stated that An Garda Síochána welcomed the intention of Tusla to co-locate Tusla personnel at the national child protection Unit at the GNPSB and awaited the receipt of a communication from Tusla in that regard and that upon receipt of confirmation from Tusla of its intention to co-locate Tusla personnel at the national child protection unit, An Garda Síochána will immediately commence discussion with the agency with a view to making of necessary arrangements regarding such issues as role profiles, duties, roster periods, line management, etc. It stated also that the NCPU had only recently been established and was currently working to advance the readiness of An Garda Síochána for commencement for the Children First Act 2015 and that it was envisaged that the proposed secondment of Tusla personnel would take place post-commencement of the Act but that An Garda Síochána would discuss earlier secondment of relevant personnel if proposed by Tusla.

That is just an update I received for the purposes of this committee.

Dr. Shannon has done work on the drug and alcohol area and I found his findings extremely interesting. What we have to do here is to educate people about the issue of alcohol and its knock-on effects. Many people are unaware of these, and I have also spoken to Senator Black about this. Many people are unaware of the knock-on effects that even moderate or chronic moderate alcohol intake can have. In anything we do on alcohol, we need to prioritise where it is that we need to specifically target. Sometimes we get blanket approaches that are so spread out that they lose their effectiveness. Behaviour towards and consumption of alcohol has changed over the last ten to 15 years. Binge drinking was not the phenomenon 20 or 25 years ago that it is today. We also have drugs and alcohol, uppers and downers, being used together, in particular by young people and unfortunately also by children of 14, 15 or 16 years of age. We have a huge binge drinking culture.

My view is that what we need to do is prioritise and target a specific area. The binge drinking culture is affecting the situation, notwithstanding the findings of Dr. Shannon across the board. Perhaps it is not a question Dr. Shannon can answer, but from my own research the consummation of alcohol in Ireland has dropped by 25% in the past 15 years but the question is whether the abuse of alcohol has increased.