Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the publication of the youth justice strategy. I commend everyone who works with young people to try to guide them from the path of criminality to living and contributing to our communities. The strategy will guide a multitude of projects, agencies and support services for young people in our communities. There is no doubt whatsoever that early intervention and prevention of youth coming into the criminal justice system is key.

I note the reference to multiple disadvantages, which includes poverty, children and young people in State care, Travellers, ethnic communities, mental health, neurodiversity, homelessness, childhood trauma, coercive control, addiction, gender difference, disability and individual learning abilities. These are all things I have seen as somebody has worked in the community for 30 years. Young people have experienced these things, some more than others. I welcome the fact that this has been acknowledged.

For a variety of reasons, it seems that once young people are part of the system, it is difficult for them to chart a different path but it is not impossible. Many young people only flirt briefly with the criminal justice system. For others, it is a long and disastrous journey.

I wish to address a number of issues. The first is family support, be it community or Tusla family support services. As a former family support worker who worked with many families over a 16-year period in the Dublin 17 area, I am concerned that we are looking at inputs and outputs such as how many families we work with and provide short-term interventions for. There is a strong focus on closing a case after a number of months. It is fantastic if people only need a short intervention. However, we know many families need longer-term interventions. I am concerned that this long-term support is not fully in place in communities.

I welcome the acknowledgement of the links between youth defendants and socioeconomic circumstances as family welfare issues. We all know these are at the core of many young people and their engagement in criminality. The use of young people by older people and grooming into drug gangs is well known. The new focus on this and people who groom young people is very welcome. Again, it needs to be resourced. I strongly welcome the focus on a holistic wraparound service, but this needs to be funded.

Day in, day out, we all deal with a chronic lack of availability of mental health youth services for children, including children with additional needs who are at huge risk of being sucked into criminal gangs. A young person leaving school early is a huge indicator of potential involvement in antisocial behaviour and crime. The statistics prove this time and again. As someone who worked in an early school leavers project and school completion programme, I know that our service was one of the first to be devastated by the cuts during the recession and has not recovered.

I welcome recommendation 1.2.2 k on page 13 of the youth justice strategy, to "support improved practices for schools, to retain children in the education system who’s behaviour may bring them in contact with the youth justice system".

Again, this has to be followed by funding, by action and by people on the ground who are experienced and who have the skill set to be able to work with these young people. Two of my children are primary school teachers and I worked in an area where there was serious disadvantage, similar to Deputy Ward's area. There were a lot of really difficult situations in schools. I recently spoke with teachers and what they and we are talking about is a DEIS-plus system to enable those schools that are on the front line of working with students and their families who are at serious risk of early school leaving. The resources they have are currently not sufficient and schools in disadvantaged areas are calling for such an enhanced DEIS-plus scheme. Anybody who knows the DEIS scheme knows that one of its key aspects is the ability to work with young people in smaller classrooms; having additional supports and funding; having a teacher who is released to talk to families and parents and to work with them to provide supports and networks; and to help people to network in through things like the child and family support networks and Meitheal. Having the time to do that work is absolutely essential because of the really complex needs some of the children, particularly in the more disadvantaged areas and because of all those things I talked about, namely, poverty, children in State care, ethnic communities, mental health, neurodiversity, homelessness, which is absolutely huge one, childhood trauma, addiction and so on. Every DEIS school deals with them on a daily basis and unfortunately, those schools say to us that they do not have the resources to be able to intervene effectively at a young age.

Early intervention and prevention are mentioned at the very beginning of this document. If we are serious about early intervention and prevention we must resource them. That is the key. This is a good document but at the same time, this will just be ink on paper unless this strategy is funded and resourced, unless the money is put into people, projects, communities, supporting families, supporting young people to stay in school as long as they possibly can and into encouraging them into apprenticeships and into college, that is, all those things that provide them with a pathway outside of the trajectory they may be facing because of those difficulties. It will just be another document that we will revisit in six years' time. I may be rude, I know there is a review every year. We will continue to review it and will probably continue to stand here and talk about mental health services. We will probably stand here every year and talk about early intervention and prevention. I welcome this document. There is some really good stuff in it but if we do not resource it or fund it, then I see more children's lives being destroyed and wasted.

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