Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is important legislation. I will wrap it up as follows. Given what has come to light in the past week, the Act does not need overhauling. It only needs clarification in so far as it goes into the judicial process of the Irish Prison Service. I will leave it at that.

I can reference it in the Dáil some other day or write to the Minister personally. It is good legislation. The newspapers are tearing it apart but there is something specific in there that needs to be looked at by the Department.

Apologies, I was late into the meeting as I was at another committee. In terms of the Estimates, the last matter I want to speak about is that Covid and the country moving up to level 3 has taken away much of the pressure valves that children would have, such as the sports matches and going down to the local youth club - the unwritten supports. We all talk about CAMHS and the therapeutic aspects of it, but there is a great deal of good done by going down to one's local youth club or scout meeting or playing that game of soccer on a Saturday morning.

As the Minister engages with the Government, even though the guidelines are set out in the roadmap for the next six months or so, everyone knows there is a fluidity to everything. As the Minister is the person tasked with speaking for young people, I ask him that certain activities that happen straight after school on the school pitch, or Irish dancing in the school hall, be considered. They are the very same kids who have spent the whole day sitting across from each other over textbooks and art activities. I cannot see any reason that certain activities after school cannot continue. I ask the Minister to champion that.

Coming into budget week, I also ask him to champion additional funding for things like CAMHS. As someone who taught in primary school, I know that in every classroom there are a number of children who find the challenges of everyday life quite severe and even debilitating. We must now add to that all the uncertainty Covid has brought. We turn on the television every day and they are talking about new cases and deaths in the country, which is very worrying and a cause of anxiety for young people. No school is functioning as normal right now, although they are doing the best job possible. The budget needs to champion all of those ancillary services that come in and help to pick up kids when they are at a low point.

I might write to the Minister on that specific piece of legislation. As we are in public session, I wanted to finish the point because I did not want to leave it in mid-air, given many media outlets have wrongly and inappropriately reported on it.