Ms Bernie Meally:

I will respond to the Deputy's first question on the timely processing of young people.

What we have seen is that quite often when a young person has engaged in a criminal act, that case will not go before the courts for a number of months, if not years. By the time that young person faces the consequences of his or her behaviour, his or her circumstances may have changed and he or she may not remember the act or the issues or needs that led to him or her being involved in that particular situation. That makes it challenging for any youth justice agency that is engaged with the young person to support him or her to change behaviour. These young people have many risks and needs in their lives. If time has moved on and things have changed dramatically, it can be difficult to support them to reflect on their behaviours, to understand how and why they engaged in that behaviour and to formulate strategies to deal with them more appropriately in the future. In the past, we have seen a number of young people brought to court at the age of 18 for offences committed while they were under that age. That is also very problematic. For us, a more timely processing of those young people would have a much greater impact in terms of allowing them to address their behaviour appropriately and to change their behaviour.

Senator Ruane raised the age of intervention for young people. The new youth justice strategy recognises the need to engage with young people at an earlier stage in order to prevent an escalation of criminal or antisocial behaviour. GYDPs work with young people from the ages of eight to 11. There is a huge piece in regard to how professionals in the Garda or the Judiciary deal with young people appropriately. There is a piece in the new youth justice strategy around building capacity-----