Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to support these statements on the youth justice strategy. There is an old saying that as the tree is bent so it grows. It is very apt. We know the difficulties of growing up in disadvantage and the effects it has on childhood development. The genesis of much of what the strategy speaks to can be found in the early childhood years. Early childhood may not come into contact with the justice system but the strategy needs to find a more comprehensive way to try to target children at the earliest possible age. This is where we can best intervene.

A social worker I met some years ago in the UK who was heavily involved in the community outlined that in his opinion the outlook can be forcefully changed for children aged up to seven years of age. Their biases and attitudes can be changed and the environment they grow up in can be cut across. However after they reach seven years of age this is profoundly more difficult to do. This speaks to some of the behaviour that unfortunately becomes hard-wired and is very difficult to get over.

I welcome the strategy and the cross-agency support the Minister of State is looking for and the management of all of it. It is important to try to target children in early years when they are young and before they come before the justice system. It is very difficult to get onto a different path children aged 12 or 14 who come before the justice system a number of times.

We have spoken in the House a number of times about school meals. We are doing a lot more about them. I will not label any community but I know of quite severe disadvantage in my constituency. I was involved in some community work there previously. School meals have a very important place in trying to get to students in disadvantage early on to make sure they are properly fed and properly nurtured. Then, hopefully, they can get an education.

The Government also has a role to play in sports grants.

In the past number of years, the Government has taken the right approach in really trying to target disadvantage and making sure only those sports grants applications that support real community integration and target disadvantage are supported within the sports grant allocation. I welcome that and think it should be the focus going forward. I would point out that in sports communities in disadvantaged areas there will always be families with ambition for their children who want to push their kids on and will bring them to whatever is going on. Unfortunately, the families who we want to get at are often not the families who will bring their children to sports. In fact, most of the time, they have no interest in that type of activity. We need to look at how we are supporting clubs and maybe we could look at initiatives to try to engage with schools and even crèches to try to identify where disadvantage is coming from and how it can be tackled.

The other area I would like to address is trauma and addiction. I highlight Aiséirí in Waterford, which is a centre for young adults, including young men and those coming through the penal system. I have met a number of people going through the system. I applaud the fantastic work Gerry Carroll and others are doing in Aiséirí in Waterford. I have seen first-hand people who have really come a cropper in the justice system. They have gone into the centre and, through significant psychological work, have come to the core understanding of changing attitudes. It has helped them to try to understand that it is basically not their fault when they come from disadvantage or have fallen into addiction through trauma. I saw two individuals there. One young guy is hoping to do aerospace engineering, having been up before the courts a number of times. Another chap is hopefully going on to become a chef. It shows the value of an integrated, co-ordinated approach, but one needs to have the experts there and time and money are needed. We have to find a way to deliver opportunity to our most disadvantaged.

I welcome, as I think everybody in the House would, the anti-grooming legislation on inducement and coercion into crime. We have to acknowledge that a large part of our problem in the criminal justice system is coming through the use of drugs, the drugs trade and how it is targeting youth. Unfortunately, that is a difficult question because many in society are partaking in drugs and feel they are not part of the problem, but of course once people are taking part in any business and supporting it, they are part of the problem. We have seen this all over the world but, again, it is really about education. We need to have a viable pathway for youth to properly participate. That should be the fundamental focus of the strategy, not just for those who have come across the youth justice system but for those who are probably heading that way. If one speaks to teachers and gardaí on the beat, they will talk about families whose kids have not yet come into contact with justice but will do so in a couple of years. They can see it starts off with just antisocial behaviour and then, for many children, it mushrooms.

I welcome the strategy the Minister of State is proposing. It requires support through community leaders and mentors to try to lead it and to educate us too. We need to look at the drug addiction supports and the supports for agencies such as Aiséirí which are trying to intervene for people.

I recently visited a crèche in Waterford where there are two children where one parent is only there casually and the other parent is there. They are both heavy drug users. That crèche organises to have those children picked up in the morning. They are preschool children. They are brought to the crèche to be with the other children for the day and then they are dropped home. The hardest thing for people at the crèche at times is to drop those kids home, knowing what they are dropping them into. I do not have an answer to that but I would say these are the problems that the strategy needs to try to address. We need a system with a collaborative approach, which I think the Minister of State is approaching. Most importantly, I think we need early, targeted interventions. We need to be speaking to those not just inside the justice system but those around it, who liaise with it and can probably point to the people most in need of remediating care.

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