Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 6 October 2020

Select Committee on Children and Youth Affairs

Estimates for Public Services 2020
Vote 40 - Children and Youth Affairs (Revised)

Photo of Roderic O'GormanRoderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

-----and it has one in Blanchardstown as well which is not far from me. A refuge was also opened in Galway so we are seeing a gradual expansion of the number of refuges but more needs to be done, particularly now that we have signed up to the Istanbul Convention, which places further obligations on us.

On mental health, I have met with Jigsaw since I have been elected. It has done great work in Dublin 15 in the last ten years so it is an organisation I see as incredibly beneficial. My Department's role here has been in the context of supporting the other Departments and encouraging them to remember that wider impact on young people. I am not sure if the Deputy had the opportunity to look at it yet but yesterday, in conjunction with SpunOut.ie my Department did a detailed piece of research over the summer called How's Your Head, Young Voices During Covid-19. That was a detailed survey of 2,000 young people that asked them about what was difficult for them during the period of Covid-19, what worked well and what changes they see that need to be made. We used the preliminary results of that survey in the context of the roadmap for resilience and recovery so there is a significant section in there about young people.

That is a reminder for all of us, because we have seen some criticisms of young people recently. Large gatherings are not on, we cannot do that and it puts young people and their families' health at risk. However, at the same time, there have been breaches of Covid-19 regulations by all sections of society once or twice and no one group should be singled out as being the cause of a spike. There is a combined national responsibility. I feel strongly about that, particularly in the context of the return to schools and the significant section in the roadmap for return to education on well-being, the use of the existing well-being programme and the tailoring of that to respond to the many difficulties that certain young people have. It was not all young people but it was certainly young people with special educational needs, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds or, as the Deputy pointed out, young people who have a difficult time at home, who find that school is a break from the troubles they have.

I take the Deputy's point on the indicators we will use and I will discuss that with the Department. I have not been around long enough to figure out exactly how certain indicators are picked but the Deputy is right that a completed care plan is a much more significant step than a care plan that is laid down without being completed.

St. John of God Hospital continues to be with the Department of Health. It will be moving over to my Department and I have discussed it with the Minister of State at the Department of Health with responsibility for disability, Deputy Rabbitte. She will be moving to my Department when the functions move but we are conscious of the huge number of adults and young people who use St. John of God Hospital supports at the moment. The Minister of State has written to St. John of God Hospital and asked it to re-examine its request to depart from services and there is ongoing discussion taking place there. The Minister for Health can probably brief the Deputy better on the immediate situation there.

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