Ms Sonya Keniry:

I am co-ordinator with the Local Community Safety Partnership. I wanted to come in on restorative justice, as it is obviously the topic of the afternoon.

Some of the difficulties with restorative justice might be that there is a long lead-in into it. It is a voluntary process and those who have survived a criminal event might not want to come in initially. A lot of work needs to be done to support them to come in to a restorative event. Equally, a young person might need a lot of work to encourage them to participate. However, if both parties become involved, it is a win-win situation for both.

I understand the Senator's concern to concentrate on young people who are involved in the perpetration of some of these events but it is kind of a circular process for people that they can come in and go out of. If the heat is taken out of the scenario for the community, it takes the pressure off the youth, and that is a win-win.

The Senator was wondering about where young people gather in groups. We are new to the community. The community safety partnership is up and running eight or nine months; I am there approximately three. Anybody gathering in groups is a cause for concern for people coming into our office and telling us what is going on. I refer to anybody who they perceive themselves to be possibly at risk from. It can be new nations, it can be the Roma community, it can be groups of men who are gathering and, of course, it can be youth. People who perceive themselves to be in a particularly heated scenario will identify risk wherever they see it, whether that be right or wrong.

Small area policing is ongoing. We have a map that will identify individual community gardaí across the north inner city so that if a community member wanted to reach out to that community garda, the community member could do that.

We are anxious to support restorative practice. It can go beyond the restorative event itself. For instance, intergenerational communities can be supported to come together in a collaborative way so that they learn more about each other and they take some of their concerns about each other out and talk about them and allow that to dissipate and for communities to move on. The more that we engage in dialogue with different sections of the community, the hope is that the community would move on in a more effective way together.