Ms Grace Hill:

Prevention is a huge part of our work. Foróige runs our drugs education initiative in Tallaght, working with young people, parents and teachers. We currently fund the youth café in Tallaght, which can help to weed out and identify young people who need to be targeted. Where we are short is in regard to more targeted areas. What we want to do at the moment is to pilot detached street work, which is working with young people where they are at and not necessarily in a formal setting. We know young people are gathering around shops, on street corners and in parks, and we are hoping to avail of that opportunity soon through South Dublin County Partnership to be able to meet with young people where they are at and then signpost them into services like Foróige and the community youth services.

I feel the formal youth services are supported equally by the task forces and we are supporting them as well. There are great youth services in Tallaght run by the partnership and community organisations. It is more the detached piece. Every young person is potentially at risk in Tallaght but who are the ones at risk? That is what we need to focus on. This year, we have been working around the issues impacting young people, particularly in Killinarden and Jobstown. Mental health is a huge issue. In our report, cannabis came out very strongly in terms of use among young people. We will be meeting with Dr. Bobby Smyth soon to talk about how we can address that cannabis issue, which is really impacting young people's mental health.

That is where we feel we are at with the prevention issue. We are happy to work with youth organisations such as Foróige.