Ms Koulla Yiasouma:

That is a big question particularly for someone who has worked in another jurisdiction. I know there is some good work going on in early intervention and prevention led by Tusla and the Department. That is what I meant when I spoke of the unique insight Oberstown has into the lives of the young people who are there. Not all factors will be in common, but there will be some common factors like I said. They will have had some sort of trauma in their background. They will have been in families where there has been domestic abuse. They may be in families where there has been parental mental ill-health that has not been treated and responded to. They may well have had an education system that did not meet their needs, and was not flexible enough to meet their needs. They will live in poverty. They will often come from poorer communities. I speak for what I have seen in the North. Until you have a system that sees the child as an individual deserving of his or her rights, that breaks down the barriers of poverty and makes education more flexible, that is able to intervene on things like speech and language and parental support in a way that does not label parents, then we are consigning children to a very difficult background.