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

There will be general agreement on the fact that, when we have seen a community response, as happened in my town of Dundalk, we have seen community gardaí doing absolutely brilliant work in their interactions with the communities. Sometimes they can deal with issues before they ever happen. We need a lot more of that. We need to have community safety partnerships up and running. I spoke to the Minister regarding the necessity for interventions at family and community level and youth diversion programmes, such as what we have in Muirhevnamor and being run out of the house in Cox's Demesne. We also need to see the likes of the Greentown project and real diversion for those who are becoming involved in criminality.

We know the lack of addiction services across the board and the chaotic outworking of serious organised crime. It is not only drug debt and intimidation; there are also chaotic cases, sales pitches, party houses and people who come apart under addiction and create a huge hassle for the communities and businesses that surround them. Supports are not in place, whether those are gardaí, Tusla or the powers county councils have to deal with estate management issues. It is a multiagency matter and we need to deal with that.

I refer specifically to mental health issues, which seem to be falling to the gardaí to deal with. We all know we do not have a robust enough mental health service. I will deal with one specific case without getting into any names. I know of a young woman to whom I have spoken. When speaking to her, I heard of huge conspiratorial ramblings and issues regarding personal hygiene. I know her family, who are very good people, but they cannot have her in the house.

The gardaí have been very good in how they have looked after her. They have arrested her multiple times under the Mental Health Act and doctors will not sign committal forms. They will sign for voluntary admission but not for committal, and we are dealing with circumstances that will get a lot worse. There is also the issue that many people no longer have a long-standing GP who would recognise the change in a person. I am not even getting into one element of how difficult this is. We could be talking about anosognosia and the idea that a person who is sick does not realise that is the case.

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