Dáil debates

Wednesday, 6 October 2021

The National Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027 and Supporting Community Safety: Statements

 

3:27 pm

Photo of Matt ShanahanMatt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My constituency office is also across from the courthouse in Waterford and I reiterate exactly what Deputy Fitzpatrick has said about that. It is terrible to see the number of young people involved in the courts.

It is a fact that people in our general community feel vulnerable and unsafe at times, particularly when they are outside their homes. However, it is a fact that people who live in disadvantaged areas certainly feel vulnerable, for themselves and their children, whether they are inside or outside their homes due to gangs and antisocial behaviour, drugs and substance abuse, or the danger of them and their children being coerced or exposed to criminality, and low- and mid-level crime. We know disadvantage leads to further disadvantage. Due to a lack of education, a lack of role models, and a lack of employment with no career choice, ongoing disadvantage will, most likely, be repeated in the family cycle.

The strategy we are debating proposes to involve the community and build around that. I ask the Minister to outline how we get the youth and chaotic parenting to engage with us. School clubs, school breakfast clubs and school dinners need to be resourced in every part of the country. I have some experience of these in the past and they do tremendous work. If children go to school hungry, they have no chance of being taught and, furthermore, they feel deprived when they compare themselves with other children in the school.

The teachers want to support this endeavour. In my area though, I know of a school club that was getting very little resourcing other than the private moneys being put into it. GAA and other local sports and community clubs are an absolute must in this regard. Such community-level organisations must be included in the allocation of sports grants now be considered. I refer especially to those that are poorly funded.

I welcome the local community safety partnerships initiative. Mr. Sean Aylward, a former Secretary General of the Department of Justice, is leading that undertaking in Waterford and I wish him the best of luck. I spoke here recently about the resources being provided to the Garda. I mentioned that in Waterford, the site of the new divisional headquarters, officers do not even have a locker room to put their bags into and in which to change their clothes. The monitoring room in that station serves ten counties for all 999 emergency calls and yet the people there are sitting cheek by jowl in rooms that barely have ventilation or windows. It is a ridiculous situation. The station is understaffed. It lacks 16 full-time gardaí and no sergeants have yet been promoted, even though they were allocated to the station in the last two years. These matters need immediate attention.

We also need a new drugs strategy and we must determine how to tackle the drug barons, the mules and the dealers. How the Criminal Assets Bureau, CAB, is engaging at this level must also be examined. In addition, we need community intelligence and that cannot be developed without getting the community involved with community policing. It will require the building up of trust. How does a community-based organisation, allied with public services, support and engage with families who have little in the way of such trust? A bridge must be built between local welfare offices and the Garda. I am not sure what communication goes on in that regard, but my experience has been that there is very little. We must build community trust that will in turn bring about development for the people in those communities.

We need early targeting and intervention by the support services of the State in respect of vulnerable families and young children. Voluntary support services must have a co-ordinated vision. I will not go into detail about a case in Waterford but I will outline the situation. Volunteers were going into a family in Waterford where small children were experiencing incredible hardship and distress. The volunteers tried to engage with Tusla but they were told that they could not and that Tusla was already engaged with the situation. Those volunteers, however, were visiting that family week after week and seeing no remediation of the situation. That is no longer acceptable. If this initiative is to work, then this aspect is something that the Minister of State must examine.

More Garda resources must be involved in combating crime. Criminals must also be properly profiled. If the intelligence exists, and the resourcing is provided, then that can be done. We must start to have a zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour and vandalism. Whether those responsible are living in disadvantage or students attending third level, there is no difference in my mind. They are all equally culpable in this regard. Evidence is also needed to show that success is possible for disadvantaged communities. I ask the Minister of State to look at investment in capital initiatives and at investment in maintaining the public realm in disadvantaged areas. Equally, education is required. We must bring in role models to talk to young people about the poverty trap of unplanned pregnancy and to try to give them an example of a different model that will allow those young people to see where their future might lie.

A social welfare answer is required in respect of those fathers who refuse to pay child support. I raised this issue before I entered politics in Waterford and perhaps the Minister of State will respond to me on this matter. It was my understanding then that there was no obligation for the names of fathers to be noted on birth certificates. If the names were not noted, then there was no way for social welfare officials to track those fathers. I ask the Minister of State to get back to me and to let me know if that situation has been rectified. The situation in Australia at the time was that if a father was not registered on a birth certificate, then 30% less family income was provided. That ensured that a father was named and that the representatives of the State knew where to go to get family payments. Resources with guaranteed funding streams are required in order that future planning can be assured in this area. We need buy-in from all public bodies and agencies to deliver on this plan. I hope this new youth strategy that the Minister of State is planning will provide the answer. I hope as well that this House will not have to wait too long before we are advised about whether this policy is having an impact on the ground.

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