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

You are no Deputy Stagg; please let me continue.

At the start of my contribution on the motion, I mentioned that we needed action to deal with the causes of crime. I have spoken about that many times. I previously referenced the Garda numbers but this is a motion purely on the consequences for antisocial behaviour. Again the Social Democrats said this is a very offensive motion to young people. Let us go back to the motion we had on keeping children out of crime back in March or April. We found that only 2% of children have come before the authorities, which means that 98% of our young people are decent law-abiding citizens going about their business and they need our support. The final line of my speech that day was "Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí".

As someone who was instrumental in getting education cuts reversed when everything was being torn to shreds during the economic crisis, I know well about the investment in tackling the causes. God knows how many times I have mentioned the HighScope Perry preschool project about how every €1 of investment in quality early education has a €7 return. We know we need to do more about the causes but when people are consistently subjected to ongoing barrages by people who feel they can act with impunity, we also need to look at the consequences. This is what this is about. Those consequences affect young people.

I mentioned the 13-year-old boy whose eye socket was damaged. I could have mentioned two other individuals who had the lard beaten out of them in one of the local parks. It happens throughout our constituency and there need to be consequences for that rather than allowing another 20 or 30 young people to be assaulted. They always pick on the vulnerable. It is the young person on their own or two or three years younger. It is the woman out with a buggy. It is someone from an ethnic minority who is new to Ireland and does not know the area that well and they throw out the racial tropes. They pick those they feel they can target. They also know that even those who are well able to defend themselves feel a sense of powerlessness. If someone came up to a grown man of 6 foot 5, that person knows they have to be very careful about what they do. These individuals play on that. They intimidate communities.

I am not talking about the high-level drug dealing and other high-level crime. I am talking about the apprentices, the ones who, if they are allowed continue and get away with it for long enough, will enter the criminal justice system. I am also talking about the hangers-on who could be influenced by a nudge. I am not saying my suggestions are gospel. I want to have a debate. I want to see if something makes sense and if something else does not make sense. It is about coming up with solutions because as it stands people in our communities feel nothing is being done to deal with it right now - 20 years' time is too far away. Six months' time or nine months' time for an ASBO is too far away. We need to have something more quickly and that includes issues like community courts and getting gardaí out of having to go to court in the first place and some short, sharp consequences.

Once again, I thank all my colleagues for their positive contributions.

See this speech in context