Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Fianna Fáil Deputies for tabling the motion. The issue of youth justice is complex. Nuance and balance are required when dealing with it. To be fair to Deputy O'Callaghan, I think that has largely been achieved in the motion. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, has identified that one or two of the phrases used could be worded better because it indicates more responsibility for the programme than is necessarily the case, but I think the spirit of it is generally correct. There was clearly an issue relating to youth justice and how these cases were progressed. An element of restraint has been shown in the wording of this motion. I hope Deputies, when contributing, will show a similar level of restraint and understanding of the balance and complexity of this issue, none of which is to say that any of this is by any means a light matter.

The statement made by Bob Collins of the Policing Authority was significant. He said that in the three years of the existence of the Policing Authority, this is the most serious issue that has arisen. When one considers some of the issues that have been discussed by the Policing Authority over those years, that is quite a statement. It is unacceptable that 7,894 reported crimes committed by more than 3,500 children and young people were not dealt with. As previous speakers noted, the children in question were failed in this instance as were, more significantly, those against whom the crimes were committed. Some 75% of these cases fall into four crime categories, namely: public order; theft; traffic; and criminal damage. These were significant crimes but the 55 or so that involved extremely serious offences were even more significant. They included rape, sexual assault, child neglect and a number of serious assaults.

On Question Time earlier, I stated that my understanding of the system is that to be referred to a youth diversion project, a person has to accept responsibility for his or her actions. If that person does not do so, he or she goes straight to the standard youth justice and prosecution system. This does not necessarily mean jail time but responsibility has to be accepted. If one accepts responsibility, it is then a matter for the Garda juvenile liaison officer and the arresting officer to discuss whether the young person is suitable to go into the youth diversion project. That might be refused for a number of reasons, including the views of the victim, the frequency with which the person involved had offended previously or the seriousness of the offence. Other factors are also taken into account but those to which I refer are the principal ones.

There were people who accepted responsibility for very serious crimes and were not properly prosecuted. I do not know if that element has been properly reflected upon. The young people we are discussing in the context of the motion accepted responsibility for their actions and that they were culpable. That is extraordinary. It must be deeply upsetting for the victims of assault, sexual assault or rape that the perpetrators had accepted responsibility but, because the cases did not end up in the system with the youth diversion projects, they were somehow not progressed and the files were left on shelves to gather dust. It is right that all the victims have been apologised to in writing. However, what happened is scandalous.

It has been suggested that some of the difficulty arose due to the fact that at one point there was a centralised system in which all names of the relevant young offenders or the juveniles were kept. This was replaced, for potentially good reasons, by a system where there had to be a dialogue between the juvenile liaison officer and the arresting officer who was potentially dealing with any amount of other cases, both juvenile and adult. This requirement for constant feedback meant that a significant number of cases fell through the gaps. I have seen that reported. If it is the Minister of State's view that this is one of the contributing factors, I would be interested in hearing how we can deal with it. There are systemic issues relating to case management and, potentially, resources which need to be resolved. There seems to have been an equivalence between areas that were under resource pressures and those which had high numbers of cases that were not progressed. The latter indicates the existence of resource issues but it is clear that there were also systemic issues because there appear to have been difficulties across the country.

That does not in any way excuse individual gardaí for their failings. Their job is to prevent crime, to seek to prosecute those responsible for the commission of crime and to deal with other matters. This job lies at the heart of their responsibility and if they are aware of and neglecting cases which they know involve serious criminal conduct and which are not being progressed, that is seriously unprofessional and a form of misconduct which I hope will be treated seriously. The extent of disciplinary action on professional failure could vary. There could be a relatively minimal move on the more modest end of the scale but there could also be serious disciplinary issues. I want the Minister of State to assure the House that those responsible for the most serious breaches will be properly disciplined. There is value in carrying out a review in order to identify the reason for the systemic failures.

I have addressed the point about the serious implications for the victims of crime but the motion also recognises that these children were failed. They were ignored by the system and it is noted in the motion that 57 of the child offenders involved in the crimes committed between 2010 and 2017 have since died. The eldest of those people who have fallen through the gaps would surely only be in his or her late 20s or early 30s. These are not elderly people by any means and 57 of them have died. This shows that they were failed because they were not retained in the system and their lives continued along a chaotic and, ultimately, very sad path. That is not to minimise any of the crimes that they might have been responsible for but these people deserved to be kept within the system and to be monitored.

Youth diversion projects may not be perfect but they work. We need more of these projects and we need more investment in them. I have seen them first hand. Individuals with whom I grew up benefited from these project and have now gone back to education to pursue third-level degrees, work in trades and work full-time. They are living perfectly good lives. Garda youth diversion projects have ensured that they did not go down the route they could have gone down, of a chaotic life of crime. That has to be reflected upon. They may not be perfect but, by and large, the research shows that they work and that we need more investment in them.

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