Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister gave me the theory and no one would disagree with that. As somebody who was in a voluntary secondary school and was involved in, and fully committed to, SPHE I know what he is talking about. It is, however, very much hit and miss. I chair a prevention and education subgroup for the drugs task force in the north inner city and we had a roundtable discussion recently with health workers, youth workers and community workers who are involved in such programmes with young people through Youthreach or in the local schools. I came away from the meeting feeling optimistic and hopeful because of the way they were reaching out to the people who needed to be reached out to. They gave accurate information about all the things of which the Minister spoke and they looked at risk factors, competences and skills young people need for those types of addictions. We know that young people will experiment and some of them will stay in drug-taking and the abuse and misuse of alcohol. We have also seen an increase in gambling addiction. It is very hit and miss in schools whereas, at the other end of the scale, with community and youth programmes we would move forward in a better way.

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