Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

I will first acknowledge everything that Sinn Féin has set out in its motion, namely, the terror, fear and nuisance imposed on communities throughout the country, particularly working class communities, which have been flooded with fireworks. I will say what many people are saying to me tonight and it is not based on prejudice. It is very obvious that if this was happening in Foxrock or Dublin 4, it would have been sorted out by now. That it is happening predominantly in working class communities speaks volumes. It speaks of the sort of containment policy inside working class areas that dominates every aspect of this Government's, and previous Governments’, attitude to services that are needed at local level. The Minister is shaking her head but she has to answer many questions as to why the Garda does not respond to calls by members of the community, gardaí are never seen on the streets and gardaí do not respond despite repeated calls to Garda stations, both physically and by telephone. Communities need answers to those questions.

I do not fully accept the argument made by Sinn Féin that this is all about community gardaí. The motion states that the number of gardaí assigned to the Dublin metropolitan region in August 2020 was 4,059, which remains below the 2010 figure of 4,160. That is a difference of just 101. If one balances that against the argument I will make about resources that do not go to young people and which have not been restored to our communities, we can focus on where this is happening. We have a policy of containment in working class areas, which are being flooded with fireworks that were not bought and used for celebrations during the Covid-19 period. Instead, now that the market insists that it must get rid of these fireworks, they are being dumped in working class areas. There seems to be no attempt to address this problem.

Perhaps the Minister will explain Operation Tombola, which we keep hearing about, in greater detail. The Minister of State said it is all about combating the importation and sale of fireworks. We do not see the importation and sale of fireworks being combated. They are being sold everywhere.

Last night, I understand an 18-year-old man from Ballyfermot had a finger blown off. The kids who are letting off fireworks are frequently much younger, with many of them ten, 12 or 14 years of age. The stuff is being sold to them for a song. Despite that, somebody must be making money because they are not doing this for the good of their health. Clearly, there is an abundance of explosives on the market.

The Garda make political decisions as to where they allocate resources. The issue is not one of tabling a motion stating the Garda should be recruiting an extra 800 gardaí per year because we do not have enough of them. Political decisions are being made. This motion is imbalanced. Despite Deputies saying they were not having a go at young people, the motion read likes it is having a go at young people. I will use this opportunity to address that issue. I have tried at the Covid-19 committee to have special sessions on how Covid-19 has impacted on our youth. I also submitted a Topical Issue matter on this issue three times last week and each time I was refused, as were other Deputies. It is about time we had a full and frank conversation about what is going on with young people in working class areas.

A study by Amárach, a reputable research company, under the title, Generation Pandemic, surveyed youth workers in 700 youth groups, after-school and sports clubs. It found that half of all youth workers believe the pandemic and lockdown will have a massive impact on the mental health of our young people. Some 47% of respondents indicated that children are behind in their studies and 21% of children, they believe, will not return to normal schooling.

Another survey carried out by the National Youth Council of Ireland found that 53% of children already have mental health issues, 35% are falling behind in school, 39% experience isolation, and one in five is living with family conflict. We then have overcrowding in housing, with young boys and girls growing up sharing the same bedroom, not only with their sisters but sometimes with their aunts or mothers. We have young children coach-surfing and homelessness among young people is growing, not to mention the youth unemployment rate, which now stands at 45.4%. The youth are particularly impacted by drastic and draconian measures, including the slashing of their unemployment payment which has never been restored.

One has inequality in the way the social services deal with young people, and inequality in housing and education. We then have the cuts to the youth services. Funding was slashed by a third in 2010 by the then Fine Gael-Labour Party Government. That cut has never been fully restored. While some of it was restored, the catch is that this was done through a mechanism called value for money, which is basically a neoliberal economic measurement that could have a serious detrimental impact on youth services, and indeed all community and addiction services. However, I am talking about the youth tonight. This is about measuring everything through a neoliberal framework and not on the real actions and outcomes for young people. There will be serious problems in trying to deliver these outcomes, particularly when one combines that with generation pandemic and the impact the pandemic is having on them.

The Government will receive a submission from the National Youth Council of Ireland. It seeks serious engagement through more youth workers in our communities. We really need them.

They cannot take young people inside. Discos, dancing clubs, boxing clubs, youth clubs that would be open as drop-in centres and cafés are all shut because of the Covid-19 restrictions. They do not have enough resources to do outreach with the young people in a meaningful way and yet we seem to be loading the blame on them. I am not saying they are angels by no manner or means. I know many of them who live around me but the solution is not to impose more gardaí on society; the solution is that the Garda and the Minister need to make decisions that do not have that class bias of containment in working class areas. Fundamentally, the most important action to take right now is to deploy gardaí to stop the importation and sale of these fireworks. If there was not the supply, there would not be the use. That is a very obvious statement to make.

The other issue I want to talk about is the huge amount of voluntarism in the youth services and only for that voluntarism and those magnificent workers who organise football and other activities with the children, there would be nothing available. It is a serious deficit that needs time in this House to be examined, combined with the rise in youth unemployment levels and the overcrowding and lack of housing I mentioned earlier.

When I moved to Ballyfermot in the early 1990s, there was a very serious riot in a place called Gallanstown. At that time, I do not believe Gallanstown did not have a youth centre, a school or a community centre. Due to sensible intervention following the riot, we now have those facilities. Mind you, the area still only has one shop. It does not have a post office, café or pharmacy. There are no community facilities in that area. The containment issue is a real one and unless policy decisions are made to develop those on an equal level as with other areas, it will continue to happen. The main point I want to make is that in those days when the riots happened Gallanstown was flooded with gardaí. I never saw as many gardaí in my life. There were gardaí, Saracens and all sorts of modern equipment but that did not solve the problem. Gardaí in and of their own are not the solution. Sinn Féin's demand to increase the number of gardaí by 800 a year will not be the solution. The political decisions that are made by the Minister's office in how it deploys gardaí has to be seriously questioned, and the Garda have a lot to answer for.

In conversation with a recently-appointed superintendent in my area he commented that the solution to this problem is investment in youth services. Gardaí going in and arresting ten, 12 and 14 year old children, throwing them in a cell and then bringing them home does not get rid of it. Let us deal with the supply of these explosives and go after the bowsies who are flooding the streets with them. Let us interject in the communities where they need the resources and recognise that the severe austerity cuts have impacted disproportionately on working class areas and continue to do so. The policies must change.

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