Máire Devine (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I thank everybody for their presentations and their thoughtfulness for those that we need to be thoughtful for and care for. This meeting is being held at a good time. It is International Kinship Care Week and yesterday was World Mental Health Day. All those things are so mixed up together.

I have a few comments and questions. I ask the witnesses to forgive me if I fly off in different directions. There is a feeling among some people involved in the addiction and help groups, forums or whatever that we will invite the Minister into this arena but that, because there is a timeline on the new national drugs strategy, it is already set in stone. Do the witnesses feel as though their voices have been and will be heard in that? Is there time for their voices to be heard? Obviously, we are under pressure to get this report out but people have a concern that these groups' voices need to primary. Hopefully, following the two sessions we have had, we will be able to reflect that, but is there adequate time to do that because there is so much we could talk about forever?

I would like the committee to ask the Minister for justice, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, to respond to the sentencing guidelines and the focus and re-emphasis on what is best for that family when the mother is getting sentenced, and whether he will take that all in to refocus and re-emphasis it to the courts. It is such a small area of incarceration but it causes such an explosion of ripples all around. That is something we need to focus on.

The other issue is the formalisation of kinship care. They talked quite a lot about this. It is kind of floating around and nobody has tied it down, but we do not want it tied down. We should formalise it in some manner but allow it to be flexible. Let us not go down the route of forms and whether you ticked this, did that or got this from that agency, another from the doctor and another from the paediatrician, etc. They have all that information. We are in a digital age. It has got to be simpler, but certainly it has to be to the forefront and be included every time we talk about care for children.

I do not know who will able to answer my next question, which relates to the issue of women seeking refuge who either are themselves in addiction or are running from addiction, and their children. I am trying to get local authorities to give me a concrete answer in the case of a woman in fear taking her children. There was one recently who went to the county next to us, Kildare. The council is refusing to house her, saying that she needs to go back to get emergency accommodation in Dublin, but that is where the problem is. The witnesses talked a little bit about that. By the way, I extend my deepest condolences to that mam who has lost her daughter and continues to care for the child. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam.

It is about trying to get local authorities to be a bit more definite. Violence, including domestic violence, is an endemic problem in society and often the two go hand in hand. It does not excuse the violence, but it is a factor in vulnerable communities that I see. Like Ms Dunne, we all become the social worker. We have people coming in to us and not knowing where to go. Certainly, local authorities need to be addressed as to that.

I have loads more but I will stop there.