Mr. Pat Leahy:

It is a challenge. For the cohort of kids in or around the 14 to 17 years age group, an authoritative figure in uniform is not the first person they want to see. That is not a new phenomenon for us.

We skipped over the matter of kids who were involved in sport, but I will provide an example. With other stakeholders, we run the Late Night Leagues every year. In 2018, 1,763 kids were involved. The games generally take place on a Friday night at times when kids are most likely to be out and about getting themselves into bother. In 2017, 2,100 kids were involved.

I will take the committee through the list of initiatives under way across the country. While they do not all engage with kids, some do. I have stripped some out, leaving 174 individual initiatives that engage with and are embedded in communities. I could have included three or four times that number. Great efforts are being made, but engaging with young people of that age is a major challenge for us. They are beginning to have thought processes of their own and making their own decisions. I do not mean to be facetious, but it was Mark Twain who said that, when he was in his teens, he thought his father knew nothing about anything but that, once he had hit his mid-20s, he was surprised by how much his father had learned in such a short time. We are dealing with that cohort of people and it is difficult.

The diversion programme run by the Garda has a major success rate. We include young people involved in criminal activities in the diversion programme and get them through it. A large number never reoffend or come back into the programme. It is another aspect. Unfortunately, it comes after we have encountered them in criminal justice scenarios. Considerable efforts are being put into it.