Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

I do not believe they are. We have had this discussion already. A hallmark of the success of the anti-social behaviour orders is that so few children have been brought to court. The idea behind the system is to divert children away from the courts and to engage with them in an incremental way. As the Deputy can see from the figures, that is the strong advice from the experts in this regard, especially the Garda. They say that when they engage with young people who come to their attention for anti-social behaviour, and when they deal with their wider family, in particular in the context of the contracts, and contacts before they enter into the good behaviour contract, those children do not again come to the attention of the Garda Síochána.

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