Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that the Government is not opposing this motion which is hugely welcome. As I said at the start, some work has been done but we need a lot more. Some of the wording of this motion is actually time-based. It proposes taking some of the suggestions here - my suggestions, other people's suggestions and the Government's own ideas - putting them together and coming up with a plan in the next six months to move forward. That is what I what I hope will come out of this.

I thank my constituency colleague, Deputy Mark Ward, for his general support of the motion. I accept that some of the activities that I referenced and he referenced are indeed criminal rather than purely antisocial behaviour. I had three reasons to describe them as such. First, a lot of people generally call them antisocial behaviour. Second, some of the perpetrators are under 12, under the age of criminal responsibility. Third, the aim of consequences is to try to keep people out of the criminal justice system and give them a couple of nudges before they actually get involved. In that context, I welcomed Deputy Donnelly's contribution about the use of drones and other positive contributions from Members. Not every contribution was positive. I noted that the Social Democrats decided that they are not going to support the motion and called it nonsense, ostensibly, from what I can gather, by reading one line of the motion.

See this speech in context