Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses from the three organisations. In fairness, there is agreement around the fact that the European Year of Youth is probably not well known in the real world and there is an onus on all of us to play our part in highlighting it. Beyond that, it needs to be something more than thinking of the young people. There has to be something substantial relating to it. The witnesses are talking about trying to engage those on the periphery or those who are at a remove. That is always very difficult. When we talk about Eurofound, working conditions and so forth, I believe there is a wider piece of work that must be done at a societal level. We all have failed across Europe and in this State if we are talking about the need for family supports and community supports that can help families and communities that are on the periphery, where people do not necessarily have the agency and connections that many of us have growing up. There are many roadmaps to education these days that might not have existed previously, such as post-leaving certificate, PLC, courses and the like, but there are many people who are utterly removed from that. It is a piece of work that needs to be done across the board. That is one of the issues.

The other issue which must be taken into account, and this is accepting all that has been said about the difficulties young people have been through, is the drugs pandemic, an issue we were dealing with in the Dáil yesterday, and the impact it has on young people in particular. It is all-pervasive. That ranges from people who become problem drug users through to the impact that can have on their wider families and the intimidation, criminality and all the rest of it. We are asking for a citizens' assembly to take place in this State as soon as possible. It is an absolute necessity. However, many experts would say that if this is an issue that is going to tackled properly, it would have to be dealt with at European level.

I accept this might be outside the remit of the witnesses, but they are two major issues that I want to put forth while I have them in front of me.