Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I certainly will. A somewhat connected issue relates to where juveniles continue to reoffend, where they have gone through the juvenile process, gone into the programme and offend and do so again and again, up to a dozen times. When this happens in a community, the community can feel that a particular individual is being allowed to get away with everything for a considerable period. I fully agree that if a youngster gets in trouble and does the wrong thing, he or she needs a chance, and may need to get a chance a few times, but it should not continue to the stage where a community feels under threat from a person. I have instances of this happening. We can agree that a carrot is needed but somewhere the stick must come into play and that is not happening in some of these cases.