Mr. Seán Egan:

I can speak anecdotally from my own experience of representing children in front of Dublin Children's Court. I do not have a table of figures in front of me to break out but it is very clear that the vast majority of children coming before the court are from socially deprived backgrounds. Oftentimes, they are coming from families that are living in emergency accommodation. Sometimes, there is a situation where there are families living in homeless hubs and there will be a number of teenage boys getting into trouble on a pretty persistent basis together and it can be a repeating cycle. I echo what Ms Brady said, in that there is a huge amount of neurodiversity, mental illness and early school leaving. Oftentimes, people have become frustrated at their educational experience because they have needs that go unmet or behavioural issues that make it hard to get the most out of school, so they end up with a lot of time on their hands in an area where they can be preyed on by rather sinister adult figures who groom young people into being involved in crime. It is very important to realise that, while these young people are sometimes the perpetrators of harm, they very often are the victims of crime as well.