Dáil debates

Tuesday, 14 May 2019

Ceisteanna - Questions

Cabinet Committee Meetings

4:50 pm

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Everybody is appalled by the killing of Azzam Raguragui in Dundrum. My son hangs out in that area and would have seen Azzam, and the kids he hung around with there, regularly. The knife crime to which Deputies have referred is shocking. Beyond condemning what is atrocious, however, we have to think about how we are going to address the problem. It is getting worse and worse and I do not think we are looking at the problem in the right way. I do not have all the answers but I think we have to recognise that we do not know how to deal with teenagers. We do not know how to relate to teenagers or how to engage with them. We do not consult with them and we are not providing them with other and more productive things to do.

We have to get our act together in this regard. In my area, where there was quite a lot of antisocial behaviour, there was a brilliant outreach project for young people and the guy who worked on it, a friend of mine, had a relationship with the young people there but the project was cut. He said the situation would deteriorate and it did so, really badly. We are even cutting the young people's community projects that work. We need to expand our horizons massively in the area of engaging with young people and providing them with productive outlets if we are to move them in a different direction.

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