Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Could I get a bit more detail? I think we all welcome any moves as regards AIMS, and I really like the idea of targeted supports, but the problem is that we are all aware of desperate sets of circumstances. We all know that we need to see full wraparound family supports and full interventions.

In an awful lot of cases we deal with issues where kids have been left in the most chaotic of circumstances and you can be dealing with huge issues where addiction meets intergenerational poverty meets any other issue you want to pick, all of them negative. The fact is we are then trying to get the council, the Garda, Tusla, HSE services and whatever else. None of them have the resources to deal with these issues. I remember and I have seen where we had very close and early family supports and were able to save a lot of families and kids. However, if we are not going to make those sorts of interventions we will be dealing with these chaotic scenarios afterwards and we will, unfortunately, need some nuclear options at a later stage.

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