Ms Fiona Murray:

I will follow up on several matters. With regard to the young people we meet, perhaps through the likes of special care units such as Ballydowd, who have entered the services because of a welfare issue compounded by an addiction issue, or a young person with an addiction issue who has had a criminal conviction in Oberstown and meets us there, many of these young people tell us they are doing very well dealing with their addiction issues while in the services because they are getting the relevant supports but their concern is where they will go beyond it. They will get a discharge from Oberstown and go back to their local communities. They speak about being extremely vulnerable to gang-related matters or to persons in the community who will exploit them.

Being in special care presents its own issues for young people, including, obviously, identifying placements beyond special care.

Then again, where does that young person go? There are the issues that they face if they are back into their community and do not have a suitable placement to support them around their ongoing concerns around their addiction issues.

It is important to say that some of the young people we work with engage with local community-based addiction services. Those services are supportive and have often brought that young person successfully through their journey.

The issue for a young person with a care experience is that if you are on a care order and you need a residential placement, that is compounded by the authority overseeing that whereby that child is in the care of Tusla but there is no residential placement that can have that dual role of being the oversight as a statutory issue and also being their support them with their addiction. Residential placements are probably a badly needed service for these young people as well.