Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to continue on the point made by Deputy Ó Ríordáin. I absolutely agree that the Citizens' Assembly needs to lead to actions. We all engage very extensively in communities in our constituencies and note that the wrath and ravaging of drugs are very evident and on the increase. The profile of youngsters who develop a drug habit and become welded to it has definitely changed at constituency level in so far as I can see it. At times, we are all guilty of profiling people, which is wrong, but I recently saw a young person whom I have known for a long time who is now on a very slippery slope. This pattern is very much starting to emerge. On the actions needed, we can no longer have a head-in-the-sand approach when it comes to drugs. I join others in saying that if there are key recommendations, they should be legislated for here.

I welcome the debate this afternoon. This is a very progressive Bill. Many have dubbed it the Fagin Bill, and rightly so because with youngsters being put up to criminal activity, it has overtures of Fagin and the Artful Dodger. This is something Charles Dickens wrote about but it is happening in Irish communities day in, day out.

I was a schoolteacher, as Members probably know, and I think Deputy Ó Ríordáin was a school principal. It is devastating to see the corruption of the innocence of youth. I generally taught fifth or sixth class students and did so in a fairly good, affluent community in which not many got themselves into trouble. However, I have many good friends who were in other schools and who saw many beautiful, innocent children get caught up in activities that were sending them down a pathway that had them in huge trouble by the time they were 15 or 16. Sadly, some of these children were carried in coffins down the streets of Limerick or Clare as a consequence of engaging directly with criminal gangs or suffering as a result of addiction. This is the responsibility of the adults who corrupt the children and lure them into the world of crime.

I pay tribute to the sociology unit at the University of Limerick, which has been leading the Greentown project in co-operation with the Department of Justice and, indeed, the Department of the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman. They have to be commended because the work all has to be initiated at a certain point. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, was very much pushing for this when in opposition, before the Government took up office in 2020.

I have a few small points that are very much linked to this legislation. I have already mentioned the citizens' assembly, which is key to all this. Deputy Ó Ríordáin referred to DEIS schools. DEIS represents the key intervention where youngsters are concerned. One can have youth centres, sports capital grants and fabulous investment in disadvantaged communities, all of which we see day in, day out, but the school environment is so crucial to shaping the thoughts of children who may in the home environment or on the streets see a different pathway in life. You can very much shape a youngster at school age. By and large, kids up to the age of ten or 11 are very willing to listen to their teacher, embrace the school environment and absorb like a sponge.

DEIS is a fantastic way to reduce the pupil–teacher ratio. Included in the model are home–school liaison officers and better school interventions to ensure kids show up to school each and every day. One of the problems with DEIS is that it is linked to the census returns and Pobal statistics. It is linked to five-year cycles. We are more adept in Ireland at changing constituency boundaries than recategorising DEIS. I have made this point to the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, who is excellent and fully gets why DEIS recategorisation should happen more regularly. In the past 18 months alone, there has been considerable transience in many communities. I am thinking of the community of Shannon, County Clare, where there are four primary schools. Some of these have DEIS categorisation and some do not, yet there is considerable transience in the community, with people renting and moving on. A sociodemographic trend on a Pobal map from 2016 bears no relevance in the summer of 2023. We need to be more fluid in this regard. The obvious approach is to have an in-school census. Many schools would produce one anyway. GDPR has put a bit of a question mark over how ethical this is, but it would make far more sense for schools, or clusters of schools, to carry out their own in-house censuses to ascertain the extent of the likes of parental unemployment, household income, family separation and living circumstances. This would be far more informative in terms of DEIS categorisations and all the spin-off supports that wrap around the child in the formative years.

My next point is on Tusla. Some might argue that this does not fit in. It absolutely does because Tusla has another of the wraparound services. The threshold Tusla applies to complaints is still far too high. In my professional life, I contacted Tusla on several occasions. I will say no more about that other than that on each occasion I was quite disappointed that it did not follow up on what I believed was a matter it should have followed up on. It has certain thresholds and it leaves a lot to be desired.

This is good legislation. It is right that it is being supported by all Members of the House. Certainly, that is what I hear. I do not believe there is a great deal of amendment happening. I support the Bill. It is a matter of the other factors, such as the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use, the categorisation of DEIS, beefing up what Tusla can achieve and having thresholds that provide for meaningful engagement. Ultimately, a child is a child and cannot be held fully responsible for any action he or she takes until late adolescence, or adulthood at the age of 18. It is all down to parents. I am glad this legislation puts parents front and centre again.

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