Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

My first question is for Foróige. I know the wonderful work it does on the ground along with organisations such as Youth Work Ireland and around catching people who may fall through the net. I know the benefits of these organisations particularly in rural communities. That is my experience.

Prior to the pandemic there was difficulty in getting volunteers for Foróige and similar organisations. Has that resolved itself? Have we work to do in encouraging volunteers? In my home town of Ballieborough the Garda and other volunteers set up a Foróige and we had a huge response from young people. There were 125 young people looking to sign up. Our biggest difficulty then was getting volunteers to run the organisation and ultimately it did not continue because of that. Will Foróige comment on that?

Mr. Ó Donnchú gave us a very good briefing on the local community safety partnership pilots. I am delighted to see that one is in a rural joint policing committee, JPC, area like Longford. How long are those pilots running? He said that they would run for 24 months and then there would be robust reporting on them. I think the JPCs are very effective and important in constituencies and communities because they have input from the Garda, education, young people and the local authority and all those at the coalface of dealing with antisocial behaviour. Does Mr. Ó Donnchú have any further thoughts on the role of community policing in antisocial behaviour? My experience would be that in the past ten years or so we have seen that community Garda presence vanish. That was to the detriment of society and communities. I see them becoming more visible in communities again and more resources being put into that but my feeling is that we need additional resources put into it. The benefit to the Garda, communities and young people is great.

Mr. Ó Donnchú also briefly mentioned education representatives. I assume we are not only talking about the Department of Education schools but also our ETB schools and Youthreach schemes which have a part to play in responding to antisocial behaviour.

I have a broad question on antisocial behaviour for the Dublin organisations. Do we have a particular issue in the city centre? Is it being policed adequately?