Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will go back to the multi-agency approach. I was involved in a project in Blackpool, Cork, with the local gardaí. This is going back 15 or 18 years, when local gardaí worked very closely with the community, such as, for example, in respect of instances where young people dropped out of school.

When we did a survey of the people who had come through the training schemes there, we found that 70% of them were in full-time employment five years later. It was the gardaí who initially started it in getting them into the programme. The people might have committed a minor offence and the gardaí could have taken them through the court the system or try to put them through the centre. Putting them through the centre was a far more effective way of getting the young people back onto the system so that they could earn a living for themselves. I am wondering whether we are doing enough of that especially for young people who, for some reason or other, do not fit in to the educational system and end up on the street, starting illegal activity. Should we be doing more on that? In my area, the gardaí are doing a huge amount of work and I wonder if we are doing enough in other areas in that regard.