Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Callaghan for giving me the opportunity to speak on this issue. When I read of this report and heard the comments of the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, I was quite shocked. As Deputy Curran stated, we do not want to be talking about the fact that almost 8,000 crimes were not properly actioned or that more than 3,800 of the children involved had committed more than one offence. The youth diversion programme is a great system that must be strengthened further. While this debate is not about that programme, we must think about the resources devoted to it.

In terms of the statistics, I wish to focus on assaults on minors, which represented 3% of the reported incidents. Assaults on minors by minors can include, for example, a young lad getting a slap at a disco. What effect does that have on the young victim?

He knows something should have been done and that this was a wrong done to him but because there was no follow up action, when he next wants to go to the youth disco, he will be nervous that the young lads who perpetrated the previous act on him will be there waiting for him even though he might just have been a random victim of a couple of lads. If a Garda liaison officer, GLO, is assigned to deal with an issue on the day it happens the situation might not escalate. When a GLO makes an intervention, the perpetrator becomes aware that he or she has committed a wrongdoing, admits it and apologises, the victim knows that the person who committed the crime has acknowledged the wrongdoing, and a pathway is created. This provides comfort for the mothers of both families. It provides comfort to the mother of the child who is the victim to know that the law works and protects and also for the other mother who does not want her child to go down the wrong road to know that somebody is watching out for her child and there is a pathway to prevent situations getting worse.

Approximately one year ago I brought forward a Bill to introduce Fagin's law. I sought to introduce Fagin's law for many of the reasons discussed here this evening, including to protect young people who get involved in drug activity and become runners. These young people are not just statistics. We need to protect them. Without early intervention, problems escalate out of control. An Garda Síochána, unfortunately, has come out of this in a poor light. On the up side, the commentary and acknowledgement of the issue by the Garda Commissioner, Mr. Drew Harris, has been positive. While it is welcome, what is important now is how this matter is progressed, how An Garda Síochána can be strengthened and how we can get community policing into our schools. We need the Garda to go into our schools to explain how the law works in the case of 16 year olds and 17 year olds. Pupils need to know that every action has a reaction and they need to know how to be protected. We are not doing that. There are not enough Garda visits to our schools. When a minor incident occurs in a school there is no designated person to whom a pupil can go who can tell him or her that it should not have happened. That is a big piece of this jigsaw and, probably, the most simplest piece of it. There is buy-in from the Garda, the parents and the schools. Earlier, I mentioned the two mothers. Those two mothers need to know that there is somebody supporting them. This is what Fianna Fáil is looking for.

I commend Deputy O'Callaghan on bringing forward this motion. This is a vast and varied area but there are solutions that do not require huge investment. We need to start providing wrap around services and more GLOs because a lot of good work could be done in terms of prevention.

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