Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak about the national youth justice strategy. I put the question: what is youth justice? In a real republic, youth justice would be seen to be giving all the young people of this island an equal chance to reach their full potential but in a State that has known nothing but flip-flopping Governments of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for more than 100 years, many of our young people just never had a chance.

Policies that are designed to limit the opportunity of young people are like virtual handcuffs that impede them from availing of the same access to housing, food, education, job opportunities and the right to a fair and equal chance in life. We had a passionate debate on child poverty this week in the Dáil. We are seeing the fallout today of the intergenerational societal problems that are underpinned by poverty. We have areas with high levels of disadvantage right across the State. Over the years, community services tasked with rebalancing the differences between those who have and those who have not, have seen their budgets cut to the bone. Sinn Féin has gifted the Minister of State the solution to somewhat redress the balance. The Proceeds of Crime (Investment in Disadvantaged Communities) (Amendment) Bill 2021 passed Second Stage in this House. The Bill would ensure money seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau was put back into disadvantaged communities. While it was not opposed by the Government, there are probably ideological differences in terms of how it considers the money should be reinvested. The indication is that the Government wants to restructure existing community safety programmes such as the community safety forum and the joint policing committees. While I would not be opposed to that, and I would welcome any additional funding for these community structures, the funding should come out of existing budgets and not be funded directly from money seized by the CAB. What Sinn Féin would like to see is the money seized from the criminals put back directly into the areas where the criminals are most active.

What we want to see is the money put back into community services that have seen their funding cut. We want to see family resource centres, youth organisations, unemployment services, sports clubs, drugs task forces and others being able to benefit from this fund. This was the money that was ripped from our communities in the first place. There is no better way to tackle community safety than increasing communities’ resilience to tackle criminality. If the Government is serious about rebalancing between the haves and the have-nots, then it should progress the Proceeds of Crime (Investment in Disadvantaged Communities) (Amendment) Bill 2021 through the Houses of the Oireachtas.

I support the focus of the strategy that will help our young people from falling into criminality. As was mentioned, early intervention is key to building resilience in our young people in order that they do not see a life of crime as an attractive proposition. In an area of high poverty, it is very easy for young people to become attracted to criminality. They see the lads with the flash jackets, the new runners, the top-of-the-range cars and the seemingly endless supply of money. There is also an attraction in becoming a somebody. However, as the Minister of State knows, these criminals are nobodys. They groom our children, they suck the lifeblood from our communities and they offer nothing in return. Garda diversion projects can help and do help but, sometimes, they are too late, as by the time the young people are engaged with the projects, they are already caught up in a criminal lifestyle.

I have been engaging separately with residents in my own area who feel they are hostages in their own homes because of the behaviour of some people in their area. These residents are experiencing open drug dealing, open drug use, intimidation, vandalism and threats on a daily basis. It is very easy just to throw a blanket over this activity and call it antisocial behaviour. When ordinary citizens are subjected to this barrage of abuse on a daily and nightly basis, it is much more than antisocial behaviour. Drug dealing is a crime, intimidation and threats are crimes, as is wanton vandalism, and they need to be treated as such.

The problem is twofold. First, we do not have the community structure in place to stop these issues from arising in the first place and, second, we do not have the Garda resources to respond to crimes when residents call the Garda. Parts of my area in Dublin Mid-West feel abandoned by the Garda, but from speaking with gardaí, they are also frustrated as they feel they cannot respond in the way they would like because of the lack of numbers and lack of resources. Strategies like this are all well and good but unless there is political will to resource our communities, then this cycle of psychosocial problems that our young people are experiencing will continue.

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