James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I move:

"That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I am pleased to bring the Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Bill 2023 before the House today. The Bill is an important addition to the body of law that protects children from the harmful effects of crime on their lives, their families' lives and their futures as citizens who are properly equipped to benefit fully from all that society has to offer.

The Bill address a very specific issue, which is to recognise and make punishable in law the harm caused to children by drawing them into a life of crime. By introducing the Bill the Government will deliver on the two programme for Government commitments to legislate against the coercion and use of minors in the sale and supply of drugs and to criminalise adults who groom children to commit crimes.

The existing law provides that an adult who uses a child to commit a crime can be punished for that crime but it does not address the separate, and arguably more significant, harm that is done to the child in such cases. The law has never recognised that there are two wrongs taking place when a child is groomed into committing crime. There is the visible offence against the original victim but also a very grave wrong against the child. This new legislation will outlaw the grooming of children into crime. For the first time, it will be an offence for an adult to compel, coerce, direct or deceive a child for the purpose of engaging in criminal activity, or for an adult to induce, invite, aid, abet, counsel or procure a child to engage in criminal activity.

The purpose of the Bill is to address the harm that is done to the child, which may arguably be more serious than the immediately visible offence, especially when carried out as part of a pattern over a sustained period or by a trusted person within that child’s circle. Anyone who is found guilty of the new offences faces a term of imprisonment of up to 12 months on summary conviction and up to five years if they are convicted on indictment. The child victim does not have to be successful in carrying out the offence for the law to apply.

Great care is required when framing new legislation aimed at harms against children, particularly to avoid any unintended outcomes. In some cases, the person grooming a child to commit a crime is another child under the age of 18, who may also be a victim of this type of grooming. It is important to take into account the vulnerabilities and needs of all children who might be affected so that no further harm is done. Any legislation which simply criminalises the recruitment of children into crime could have the unintended effect of criminalising other children, without having any real impact on those who actually control criminal gangs. With this in mind, liability for the new offences is being limited to adults. In such circumstances, other interventions that seek to mitigate harm and that are tailored to the needs of children are more appropriate.

The threshold for the offences in the Bill is set deliberately low in order to allow the authorities to intervene before a pattern of offending can develop to the point where more serious offences are being committed and significant harm is done to the child. Setting a higher threshold would mean that these low-level offences could not be tackled and more serious offending would have to occur for the legislation to take effect. Where an offence is detected, it will be a matter for An Garda Síochána and the DPP to decide how to proceed.

I want to acknowledge the efforts made previously in the House to address the involvement of children in crime. Several Private Members' Bills have been brought forward over the years, aimed in particular at children being used by adults involved in the illegal drugs trade. I recognise the role of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, when she was in opposition. In 2016 Professor Geoffrey Shannon, who was the special rapporteur on child protection at the time, recommended that Ireland should introduce new legislation similar to the Children and Justice Legislation Amendment (Youth Justice Reform) Act 2017 in Victoria, Australia. That legislation made it a crime for an adult over the age of 21 to knowingly recruit a child to engage in any criminal activity punishable with a term of imprisonment of five years or more.

The Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Bill 2023 goes further to protect children from criminal activity than the earlier Private Members' Bills and the Australian legislation. It will make it a criminal offence to engage a child in any type of criminal activity including but not limited to crimes related to the illegal drugs trade. It also includes all of the lower level criminal activities that frequently accompany the sale and supply of illegal drugs and can have such a corrosive effect on communities.

Irrespective of what changes we might decide to make to the law, the fact remains that legislation to deal with the exploitation of children for any criminal purpose requires a carefully considered approach, involving consideration of prosecutorial, operational and service delivery issues as well as the strict letter of the law. When considering any new law that affects children who are involved in crime, it is important to bear in mind that a key feature of any successful approach to youth crime is to try to keep young people out of the criminal justice system as far as possible. The Bill has been developed alongside other non-legislative measures to address child criminality.

The Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027, which I launched in April 2021, recognises that young people in conflict with the law should be treated as children first. It emphasises due respect for the rights of young people in a way that strengthens their capacity for positive participation in community life and reinforces respect for the human rights and freedoms of others. The strategy is designed to provide a developmental framework to address key ongoing challenges and newly emerging issues in the area of youth justice. This includes preventing offending from taking place and diverting children and young adults who commit a crime away from further offending and involvement with the criminal justice system.

The youth justice strategy emphasises evidence-informed development of programmes and interventions. It also provides for enhanced criminal justice processes, detention and post-detention measures to provide consistent support to encourage desistance from crime and promote positive personal development for young offenders. It is well recognised internationally that more considered responses by justice systems for this age group may produce better results.

Research tells us that young adults, not unlike adolescents, can be particularly vulnerable to peer pressure, difficult personal or socioeconomic factors, including substance misuse, and the impact of childhood trauma. A conviction can result in a chain reaction of negative outcomes for a young person including limiting employment opportunities, preventing them from getting visas to travel abroad and social exclusion, all of which can feed into reoffending cycles, which is not to anyone's benefit. It is important that we consider the supports and interventions needed for young people as they move into adulthood, as personal circumstances do not just change overnight when people turn 18.

If a young person under the age of 18 commits an offence, they can be given access to the statutory Garda diversion programme, including supervision by a Garda juvenile liaison officer. The diversion programme provides a second chance and enables young people to avoid prosecution and a criminal record. The programme has proven to be very successful in diverting young people under the age of 18 away from crime by offering guidance and support to them and their families. The Garda youth diversion programme is provided for in the Children Act 2001 and a key support to the programme is the network of more than 100 youth diversion projects. These are community-based multi-agency crime prevention initiatives which seek to divert young people who have become involved in crime and antisocial behaviour and to support wider preventative work within the community and to work with families at risk.

Youth diversion projects work with young people from 12 to 17 years of age to reduce offending and recidivism. They seek to facilitate personal development, promote civic responsibility and improve long-term employability prospects. The projects are primarily targeted at young people who are considered at risk in communities where a specific need has been identified and where there is a risk of them remaining within the justice system if no intervention takes place. The aim of the youth diversion projects is to promote the conditions needed for the behavioural patterns of young people towards law and order to develop and mature through positive interventions and interactions.

Deputies are aware of the groundbreaking Greentown project that is being undertaken by the University of Limerick with the support of the Department of Justice and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. It has informed the development of policy and practice. The aim of the Greentown project is to investigate the involvement of children in criminality and to establish interventions to tackle the problem. This innovative project was recognised at the 2020 European crime prevention awards and provides insights into how criminal networks attract and confine children, encouraging and coercing them to become involved in serious crime and limiting their opportunities to escape their influence.

As well as analysing how criminal networks recruit and control vulnerable children, the team running the Greentown project have attempted to assess the scale of this problem and the resulting national prevalence report established that this issue is widespread across the country, in both rural and urban settings. The Greentown team are currently carrying out two trials to evaluate interventions to address this issue. The interventions are designed to reduce and disrupt the influence of criminal networks on vulnerable children. The teams operating the two trials work closely with An Garda Síochána at a local level to reduce and disrupt the influence of criminal networks on children and to provide supports for their positive development. This work is assisted by an international team of experts on crime and criminal networks, together with Irish scientific, policy and practice expertise in child protection and welfare, drugs and community development, and is strongly supported by key State agencies, particularly An Garda Síochána. The interventions that are being developed and trialled through the Greentown project will become another significant tool with which we can tackle the difficult, and often seemingly intractable, problem of the involvement of children in crime.

It is vital to the future cohesion of our society, as well as to the lives of the individual children affected, that we take up all of the options that are available to reduce the harm done to them and to give them a future where they can avail of all that our society has to offer. The provisions in this Bill will further strengthen the ability of relevant authorities to intervene where children are being groomed into a life of crime. In particular, An Garda Síochána will be enabled to directly tackle the harm caused to children by grooming them into crime without having to address other issues first. By adding this new legislation to our Statute Book, we will send a strong message to those people in our society who groom children into criminality that not only is it not acceptable to harm children in this way, but also that we are equipping our authorities with the tools needed to intervene and to deal with the problem.

This Bill is an important addition to the laws of our State that are aimed at protecting children from harm. The immediate and ongoing harms that result from children being groomed into crime will be directly addressed by the provisions in this Bill. The Bill will also reduce the likelihood that they will become involved in criminal lifestyles in the longer term and into adulthood. Enactment of the Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Bill 2023 will send a strong message to communities that grooming children into criminal activity is not acceptable and can be tackled. It will also give a mandate to An Garda Síochána to intervene and to take appropriate actions at a local level, thereby reducing the harm done to children in these circumstances and reducing the likelihood of offences being committed in the first place.

I look forward to the contributions in the course of our debate and would be happy to address any aspects of the legislation that Deputies wish to raise today and subsequently. I commend the Bill to the House.

Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. We welcome this Bill and are supportive of it, although there are some issues that we would have with the Bill which I will touch on later in my contribution.

The children in our communities deserve to be protected from criminality and kept safe in order that they can have a better future. We cannot allow the criminal gangs to continue to be such a scourge on our communities. Older criminals using children for criminal activity is not a new phenomenon in disadvantaged communities. However, there has been a visible increase in this activity in communities over the last couple of years. Young people are being targeted by older, experienced criminals. Children are being groomed by these unscrupulous criminals. They are attracted by the flash cars, the new runners, the few bob in their pockets and the status of being considered a so-called “somebody”. I have said before and will say again that these criminals are absolute nobodies. They do nothing but take away from our communities and offer nothing in return.

There will be talk of organised criminal gangs during this debate. While I accept that organised crime has a foothold in some areas, it does not run our areas. We need to give gardaí the tools to be able to consistently tackle organised crime. Organised crime has no place in our estates, our towns, our villages and our cities. I grew up in north Clondalkin and parts of my community have been ripped apart by organised crime over the years. People I went to school with, people I played football with, neighbours, friends and sometimes even relatives have been impacted by organised crime over the years. Some are victims of crime, others fell into addiction and others became involved in criminal activities.

I was in Mountjoy Prison about a month and a half ago and we spoke with the governor there. He reinforced what I already knew, which is that areas of disadvantage are disproportionately represented in our prisons. These people come from communities that feel abandoned by this Government and previous Governments. It is no coincidence that some of the most disadvantaged communities are those most affected by crime.

Years of cuts and stagnation in funding for community-based services by Fine Gael have eroded community resilience. As I have said before, this is a deliberate ploy by the Government, which sees a strong community as a threat to the status quo. Sinn Féin sees the opposite. We see strong communities as an ally in building a fair and just society for all. Sinn Féin in government would get back to basics in our communities. We would invest in community development, build community resilience and strengthen our communities.

While Sinn Féin is happy to support the progress of this Bill to the next stage, there are some potential issues that we will need to examine during the pre-legislative scrutiny process. One is the age of the recruiter of the child into criminality. The Bill defines an adult for the purpose of the relevant offences as a person over 18 whereas other jurisdictions that introduced similar laws set the age of responsibility at 21. The Bill as it stands could potentially lead to the law overcriminalising young adults, who are also often the victims of grooming themselves. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission's observations on the general scheme noted that there are situations where a child approaching 18 is coerced into engaging in criminal activity by an adult who is only slightly older. In this instance, an 18-year-old who engages in criminal activity with a 17-year-old friend could potentially receive a significant penalty and is not entitled to any of the protection of the child justice system.

Another potential issue is family involvement in recruiting children into criminal activity. I want to say from the outset that the idea of an older family member who recruits a child relative into criminal activity is despicable. However, it does happen. I live in the real world. While adults who take part in this behaviour need to be punished, the Bill needs to be mindful of how this could affect the child. There are several distinct issues arising from family involvement in recruiting children into criminal activity, including the grooming of children by family members, which is very difficult to prevent. Again, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission noted that the complex issues that arise due to family ties are often overlooked in this Bill. For example, studies have shown that children involved in criminal networks are often groomed by older family members, including parents.

There are subsequent difficulties involving the child in the prosecution of family members. Encouraging the participation of a child in the criminal justice process, including the provision of testimony, may be difficult if the parent, older sibling or other family member is facing charges and penalties for grooming or encouraging them to commit crimes. There are collateral and hidden effects of the imprisonment of a parent on the family members and children. These are well documented and include disruption in childcare arrangements. There is also the feeling of guilt that a child may feel if a family member becomes imprisoned. There is a danger that the young person or child could become ostracised by their family if a family member is imprisoned. I agree with the commission recommendation that an independent specialised information and advocacy service should be available throughout the criminal justice process for all children coming within the scope of this legislation, particularly those children exploited by parents, family members or other adults in the commission of offences.

Aside from the involvement of immediate family members, children are frequently recruited by people in their social sphere. The University of Limerick study highlighted that there are long-standing networks that are part of the community and part of the neighbourhood fabric. This, in turn, facilitates the informal recruitment style typically used when recruiting children.

During pre-legislative scrutiny, the length of sentences outlined in this Bill also needs to be debated, and these are the questions I will be asking during pre-legislative scrutiny. Is five years long enough for a hardened criminal who wilfully uses a child for their own benefit? Other jurisdictions have sentences of up to ten years. We need to send a very clear message to these criminals that they are not wanted and will pay a high price for grooming. It has been noted that simply creating new offences is a low-cost response by the State because properly resourcing and motivating police, social care workers and prosecutors to address this form of exploitation is an expensive and complex task.

Legislation alone gives political cover but it is political cover without meaningful action if it does not address the underlying reasons children are recruited into crime and what attracts them. As I have said previously, the best way to stop young people becoming involved in crime in the first place is to resource our communities. I have also said in the past that youth diversion programmes should be expanded to include young people up to the age of 25. I say this in reference to the 17- or 18-year-old who may be involved under this Bill. The Minister of State has spoken previously about increasing the age and it would be appropriate to do so under this Bill. The idea is to divert those who have committed minor offences - and I stress minor offences - away from the judicial system. Their rehabilitation should take place within their communities. This would give more young people, who could be influenced by older criminals, the resilience to resist their coercive control.

There is also the scourge of drug debt intimidation in our communities. If a young person is caught with a quantity of drugs, the criminals demand payment. They often exaggerate the price and put mothers and fathers in fear, not only for their own lives but also the lives of their children, when demanding payments. My Coercion of a Minor (Misuse of Drugs Amendment) Bill 2022 passed Second Stage last year. That Bill would deter criminals from using children to sell or supply drugs, thus leading to fewer instances of drug debt intimidation. Such intimidation is an absolute scourge in our communities, with families afraid to ask for help. In my area we are lucky to have a designated officer who meets with families who are victims of drug debt intimidation in a strictly confidential manner but one officer is not enough. This needs to be rolled out in other stations across Dublin and in other areas of the State. More resources need to be given to our gardaí to allow families to feel safe in coming forward. While this Bill is progressing through the Oireachtas, it would be worthwhile keeping an eye on the Citizen's Assembly on Drugs, the recommendations it arrives at and the legislation that may follow. Drug misuse and abuse destroys families, individuals and whole communities.

Communities have only known one thing, which is the war on drugs but the war on drugs is not working. The war on drugs is actually a war on working-class communities. It has led to the criminalisation of vast numbers of our young people. I welcome the fact that the citizen's assembly is examining international best practice. I do not want to pre-empt its findings but if we move towards a health-led approach rather than a judicial approach, it may reduce the number of young people getting involved in crime.

We need to ensure that children are not groomed into crime and that they can just be children - playing football, taking music lessons, hanging out with their friends and doing all of the things that children do to reach their full potential. To ensure that this happens, we need to resource and invest in our communities so they are resilient and resistant to crime. A resourced community is a safe community and a safe community is a thriving community.

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Bill is a welcome development, especially in light of the work done by my colleagues, Deputies Ward and Martin Kenny, in this area. The maximum sentence is somewhat lower than that proposed by Sinn Féin but we can examine this further on Committee Stage.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the engagement of young people in serious and organised crime is a concern. We must be careful about scaremongering around crime but children are among the most vulnerable in our society. Traditionally, criminal law treats children differently from adults, as they are not able to interact with society and exercise proper judgment and self control, and rightly so. That is why, over the years, they have had more access to juvenile liaison officers, JLOs, restorative justice, albeit not as much as one would like, as well as probation services and community sanctions. They are susceptible to the influence of others, especially adults, and the Bill is an attempt to square a circle that exists between children committing, in some cases, serious offences within an organised command structure and the need to turn them away from a life of crime. Too many children are caught up in these acts from a young age at the instigation of an adult. This then exposes them to prison or other detention facilities during a crucial time when they would otherwise be learning skills important for their social and economic development. Prison can too often replace an educational facility and serve as one, with crime being the curriculum.

Although not necessarily under the remit of the Bill, we should acknowledge that young adults are undergoing a period of mental and emotional development in their later teenage years. In my time in the community, I saw this all too often, with vulnerable young people falling foul of the system and being set on a course of offending. Indeed, some of the same defendants would show up in court throughout the years as they grew older, stuck in a cycle of incarceration and reoffending, with convictions that would prevent, if not prohibit their advancement. For those who did escape the cycle, which is possible, the fundamentals of housing, education and rehabilitation from the mental and physical traumas they had experienced were always key. Where these are available, young people stand a chance but all too often they are not. The Government's commitment to evolving towards a public and community safety approach is important, especially for children. Tusla, the Probation Service and a proper youth justice agency all need to be part of a wraparound approach along with housing and health services.

In terms of who the Bill is aimed at, we are seeing an increased confidence among gang leaders and the showcasing of elaborate and affluent lifestyles on social media sites is a major part of this. Within communities where economic opportunity is limited, it makes for an attractive recruitment pitch and the use of children within the economic functions of a drug gang becomes much easier as a result. Children, those with no criminal record and others. are often used to transport or hold money and drugs. They are less likely to arouse suspicion and can be treated as expendable.

The Government needs to get serious in this area. Our demoralised and depleted Garda force is stretched too far to be able to deal with the problem. Clearly, the targets that have been set for recruitment into An Garda Síochána this year are unlikely to be met. The Government has actually moved its targets towards the end of 2024 because there have not been enough entrants to the courses in Templemore this year. That issue needs to be addressed, as well as looking at the Garda diversion programme, resourcing communities, improving and funding community employment, CE, schemes and family resource centres along with a dedicated youth justice agency and other measures necessary to improve the situation.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill. It will create a new criminal offence to tackle the issue of adults encouraging young people and children to get involved in criminal behaviour. As someone who has worked with young people from disadvantaged communities and worked with communities tackling drug problems for more than 30 years, I have witnessed this happening over and over again. Younger people are groomed by older criminals and drug dealers, many of whom were groomed themselves. They are lured by flash lifestyles, expensive watches, cars, cash in their pockets, and for many, the status of being apparently untouchable. They hide the drugs, they run them from place to place and they hide guns in their homes and communities. They are the eyes and ears for the older adults when gardaí enter their communities. They are used and abused and put directly in danger by these people, who only care about themselves and their ability to greedily make money from drugs.

Let us not fool ourselves that a law will change what is happening on the ground for these young people and children. We need to ensure that long before gangs get their hooks into them that we provide help and support for them and their families. What do we need? We need more youth workers and more youth facilities. We need to support the coaches and mentors in our clubs and sports organisations, dance clubs and the many voluntary community groups around the country. We need to get back to developing community projects in working-class communities to empower those communities. We need more resources in our schools, including smaller classes. We need therapeutic interventions and assessments, when required, to identify young people at risk. We need more social workers who are not just fire fighters, running themselves ragged trying to put out fires, and who are unable to build relationships so they get burnt out and leave child protection services. If we do not address this, we will count the cost in the lost lives of thousands of young people whose potential has been lost because the State left them behind and did not provide the correct supports.

I also wish to raise another serious issue involving young people and the drug gangs who use them to run drugs in our communities, which is scramblers. The gangs run drugs using scramblers because they know that gardaí are prevented from dealing with this dangerous activity by a lack of legislation, low Garda numbers and a lack of a strategy to deal with it. Over the past number of months, police forces in Wales and England have established specialist anti-scrambler units with high-powered scramblers working in teams to challenge the free rein that the gangs have had for years, which has created a sense of lawlessness in their communities.

Those units have other specialised equipment, including a spray that has a unique identifier that allows the police to identify people involved in drug dealing and the dangerous driving of scramblers on our streets. I have spoken to gardaí who are deeply frustrated that they do not have the law that was promised last year, and they have neither the numbers nor the equipment to tackle this scourge. We see that. You can go onto TikTok or Instagram and see that it is full of scramblers driving and doing wheelies up and down our roads and footpaths, on dual carriageways, on motorways, at funerals. We see that and we see the gardaí unable to deal with it. The inaction of the Government on this issue is putting the lives of the young people driving these scramblers at risk and putting the lives of ordinary citizens in danger every day. It is long past time for action on the legislation and the establishment of specialist units.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

While we welcome the Bill, we should all accept that if it ever comes to a courtroom and is utilised by the criminal justice system to criminalise somebody who has groomed a child for criminal behaviour, it will just prove that we have all failed. If it ever comes to a point at which somebody gets a sentence on the basis of how he or she has groomed a child for involvement in criminal behaviour, we will have absolutely failed. We are failing at the moment. This issue is very complex, as has been outlined. Often, what happens in communities, as I am sure the Minister of State will know, is that in some families it can be very confusing for a young person when an older family relative - it could be a father, a mother, an uncle or an older brother or sister - asks the young person to do something and there is that conflict of loyalty within their head as to what they may know to be right or wrong, the messages they are getting from wider society and from their wider community and what their family are telling them. That is a very difficult thing for a young person to grapple with.

How have we got to this situation in this Republic where we have to enact legislation such as this? How have we come to a situation where certain young people or certain families feel so empowered to behave in this manner? How have we got to the situation where young people feel totally disenfranchised and dispirited by the mainstream economy they are asked to engage with and find power, influence and respect from criminal activity?

There are intergenerational reasons behind that. Traditionally, in certain areas in my part of the world, in Dublin, you did not get respect from the teacher, you did not get respect from the social worker, you did not get respect from the gardaí, you certainly did not get respect from the media and you probably did not get respect from politicians either. On that basis, you go and you find respect from somewhere that will give you respect, easy money, cars, jewellery and other trappings of influence and power. Also, sensing the fear that other people feel when you are around can be quite intoxicating. There is the drug-based intimidation that happens, and certain troubled families in certain communities enjoy that fear. They enjoy the sense of intimidation that people feel when they interact with them. Sometimes middle-class Ireland does not understand when they ask why those people do not just go to the Garda about these families, why they do not just inform on them, or why they do not just tell people about what is going on in their area. They know who the drug dealers are. They know what they are up to. Would you do that if they were living right beside you, and if you had to put up with the brick through the window or your kid being bullied because of the intervention you made? This is deeply difficult stuff to deal with.

Deputies Paul Donnelly and Ward referred to education. I always appreciate those sorts of contributions because this has to be wider than just a criminal justice response. We talk about education, which I always veer towards in these kinds of conversations because all of us know the true liberator from this type of life is education. It gives people so many more chances. What happens, however, if the school does not have the tools to deal with what you are being asked to deal with? There are schools that have engaged themselves in a campaign based in Ballymun, Tallaght and, in my constituency, Dublin 17. They are asking for a DEIS-plus model, whereby the Dublin 1 system of multidisciplinary teams, nurture rooms and teacher support services would be readily available to these schools. These are acutely disadvantaged schools that are dealing with many of the young people this legislation is designed to protect. They deal with them day in, day out. I spoke last week to a principal who told me that a basic intervention was needed for one particular child. The principal said to me, "But we have lost her since." How devastating is that for anybody in my position to hear from a principal who had asked for an intervention to be made for the child? It is three years on and it just did not happen, and he says to me, "We have lost her since."

There are other interventions the Minister could make. You are legally required in Ireland to be in school only between the years six and 16. Therefore, before the age of six or after the age of 16, there is no legal requirement to be in school, even if you are enrolled. Even if you have very problematic attendance issues, if your parents or those in charge of you clearly are not ensuring that you are in school every day, that is a clear indicator of neglect or issues within the family. Not every child who has an attendance issue is suffering from neglect, but many do. After the age of 16, their attendance patterns may become very problematic as well. There needs to be an intervention there such that if a child is enrolled in a school, it is an early indicator of a problem within the family when non-attendance at school becomes an issue, particularly at junior or senior infants age. If you are five years of age, just because you do not come under the remit of the Educational (Welfare) Act, surely the educational welfare officer can identify and interact with that family in an empowering way in order that we do not have to deal with a scenario of a family member being given a criminal sanction for engaging another family member in criminal activity.

My colleagues have mentioned the citizens' assembly on drugs. That is a very important discussion because a lot of this does come down to drugs. Let us be honest: that is where most the money is made. It is where most the power and influence comes from in communities. It is the illegal drug trade. It is from what people get their power and influence. In fairness to the Government, there were calls for the establishment of a citizens' assembly on drugs and the Government listened to those calls. I think there is a movement now for various interventions, not just the decriminalisation of the drug user, which would go a long way towards enabling gardaí to focus on the gangs and not the victims of drug use, but also issues around education, interventions and recovery.

However, with all this talk about elections and potentially elections at the end of this year or next year, I am worried that any finding that comes out of the citizens' assembly on drugs, which is historic in having that level of conversation happening with all that expert input, will not be able to be legislated for before the end of this Oireachtas. I am terrified of that. I see beside me Deputy McAuliffe, who has done fantastic work in this area in advocating for a change in our approach on this. If we do not have that opportunity now in this Oireachtas, I worry that we will not have the opportunity again because momentum is here now for real, substantive change.

Let us all accept that if we have to criminalise somebody for engaging a minor or a child in criminal behaviour, we have all failed because that has been allowed to happen. The education system and youth work are part of the solution, but we have to give them the resources and the tools. If there are 26 schools across Tallaght, Ballymun and Dublin 17 in my constituency all saying they need a DEIS-plus system, the Government should bend over backwards and say it will deliver it for them because it is listening to what they are saying, because it understands they know better than the Government knows about how to deal with young people and because no principal should ever have to look a politician in the eye again and say, "I have lost her." This is a primary school principal. The child is about nine years of age, I understand. Her life will be pretty long, and if we really have lost that child, I just worry about the type of influence she will have on herself and on others around her. If we have lost her, how many others are we losing and how many will we potentially lose because we do not listen to the principals who are advocating what they are advocating? I have said what I have said about the attendance patterns in school from six to 16 years of age. I brought in legislation through the Seanad previously to correct that.

The aim was that if you were enrolled in a school, you would come under the remit of the legislation. The then Minister accepted it and it passed through the Seanad. We need to examine it again and to do something about it.

My last point is on the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use. Many of us in this House, from all parties, have rowed in behind the Government on this. We have not made this a political football and have dealt with it in good faith because we believe that we all understand something has to change radically in this sphere. However, if recommendations emerge from the Citizens' Assembly and we do not act on them in the lifetime of the current Dáil and Seanad, we will never be forgiven. We should not be forgiven, because this is an historic opportunity. The Labour Party supports the Bill. I hope the Minister of State will take my contribution in good faith.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I wish to continue on the point made by Deputy Ó Ríordáin. I absolutely agree that the Citizens' Assembly needs to lead to actions. We all engage very extensively in communities in our constituencies and note that the wrath and ravaging of drugs are very evident and on the increase. The profile of youngsters who develop a drug habit and become welded to it has definitely changed at constituency level in so far as I can see it. At times, we are all guilty of profiling people, which is wrong, but I recently saw a young person whom I have known for a long time who is now on a very slippery slope. This pattern is very much starting to emerge. On the actions needed, we can no longer have a head-in-the-sand approach when it comes to drugs. I join others in saying that if there are key recommendations, they should be legislated for here.

I welcome the debate this afternoon. This is a very progressive Bill. Many have dubbed it the Fagin Bill, and rightly so because with youngsters being put up to criminal activity, it has overtures of Fagin and the Artful Dodger. This is something Charles Dickens wrote about but it is happening in Irish communities day in, day out.

I was a schoolteacher, as Members probably know, and I think Deputy Ó Ríordáin was a school principal. It is devastating to see the corruption of the innocence of youth. I generally taught fifth or sixth class students and did so in a fairly good, affluent community in which not many got themselves into trouble. However, I have many good friends who were in other schools and who saw many beautiful, innocent children get caught up in activities that were sending them down a pathway that had them in huge trouble by the time they were 15 or 16. Sadly, some of these children were carried in coffins down the streets of Limerick or Clare as a consequence of engaging directly with criminal gangs or suffering as a result of addiction. This is the responsibility of the adults who corrupt the children and lure them into the world of crime.

I pay tribute to the sociology unit at the University of Limerick, which has been leading the Greentown project in co-operation with the Department of Justice and, indeed, the Department of the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman. They have to be commended because the work all has to be initiated at a certain point. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, was very much pushing for this when in opposition, before the Government took up office in 2020.

I have a few small points that are very much linked to this legislation. I have already mentioned the citizens' assembly, which is key to all this. Deputy Ó Ríordáin referred to DEIS schools. DEIS represents the key intervention where youngsters are concerned. One can have youth centres, sports capital grants and fabulous investment in disadvantaged communities, all of which we see day in, day out, but the school environment is so crucial to shaping the thoughts of children who may in the home environment or on the streets see a different pathway in life. You can very much shape a youngster at school age. By and large, kids up to the age of ten or 11 are very willing to listen to their teacher, embrace the school environment and absorb like a sponge.

DEIS is a fantastic way to reduce the pupil–teacher ratio. Included in the model are home–school liaison officers and better school interventions to ensure kids show up to school each and every day. One of the problems with DEIS is that it is linked to the census returns and Pobal statistics. It is linked to five-year cycles. We are more adept in Ireland at changing constituency boundaries than recategorising DEIS. I have made this point to the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, who is excellent and fully gets why DEIS recategorisation should happen more regularly. In the past 18 months alone, there has been considerable transience in many communities. I am thinking of the community of Shannon, County Clare, where there are four primary schools. Some of these have DEIS categorisation and some do not, yet there is considerable transience in the community, with people renting and moving on. A sociodemographic trend on a Pobal map from 2016 bears no relevance in the summer of 2023. We need to be more fluid in this regard. The obvious approach is to have an in-school census. Many schools would produce one anyway. GDPR has put a bit of a question mark over how ethical this is, but it would make far more sense for schools, or clusters of schools, to carry out their own in-house censuses to ascertain the extent of the likes of parental unemployment, household income, family separation and living circumstances. This would be far more informative in terms of DEIS categorisations and all the spin-off supports that wrap around the child in the formative years.

My next point is on Tusla. Some might argue that this does not fit in. It absolutely does because Tusla has another of the wraparound services. The threshold Tusla applies to complaints is still far too high. In my professional life, I contacted Tusla on several occasions. I will say no more about that other than that on each occasion I was quite disappointed that it did not follow up on what I believed was a matter it should have followed up on. It has certain thresholds and it leaves a lot to be desired.

This is good legislation. It is right that it is being supported by all Members of the House. Certainly, that is what I hear. I do not believe there is a great deal of amendment happening. I support the Bill. It is a matter of the other factors, such as the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use, the categorisation of DEIS, beefing up what Tusla can achieve and having thresholds that provide for meaningful engagement. Ultimately, a child is a child and cannot be held fully responsible for any action he or she takes until late adolescence, or adulthood at the age of 18. It is all down to parents. I am glad this legislation puts parents front and centre again.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this debate. Undoubtedly, there need to be serious sanctions for those who involve children in criminal activity. I have concerns about some aspects of the Bill, which I will highlight shortly.

The estimate that approximately 1,000 children are being exploited in this way cannot be ignored, but it is a complex matter. Where the involvement of children in criminality is concerned, there are wider issues that I wish to address. Investing in families, communities, education and youth work is an essential part of the package, as it pays dividends, particularly where the children in question have been identified as being involved in crime. We do not want to label them, as doing so increases the chances of repeated behaviour, particularly among very young children. Breaking the link between criminal networks requires a different approach. Undoubtedly, this will need considerable investment and patience. Achieving results with such work often requires a long-term view.

The Bills digest has proven helpful. In 2021, the Garda juvenile diversion bureau indicated that the grooming of children by criminals was the primary cause of a 150% increase in drug offences committed by juveniles in Dublin. Approximately 1,000 drug offences were committed by children and adolescents aged between ten and 17 years in 2020 compared with 400 in 2016. Whatever findings the citizens' assembly makes must be considered in terms of how to address this issue.

In 2020, Ms Anne Conroy wrote: "Research has also shown that young people who offend share many features, such as impulsivity, indifferent attitudes to offending, low empathy, peer group enforcement, poor school attendance, mental health issues, poor supervision and minimizing [sic] attitudes by parents." Internationally, the approach referred to as the 8% solution found that 8% of young people arrested over involvement in crime and subsequently sent to court committed more than half of all repeated youth offences, including violent ones. Critically, that 8% can be identified at the time of their first arrest due to factors such as disrupted families, school failure, substance abuse and network gang involvement. If we intervene early and stop this at the first offence, we have a chance to redirect a child. Appropriate interventions at this stage are critical. This is not to excuse that an offence occurred, but to ensure that how we deal with the first offence is appropriate and to prevent repeat offences.

It is long established that children and adults involved in criminal activity are disproportionately impacted by a range of issues, including poverty, unemployment, poor mental health, educational disadvantage, addiction and inadequate family support, and they often have experience of residential care or homelessness. Child homelessness is at a record level, something we never thought we would see, and will cause problems in future, given the above. According to Barnardos and the Irish Prison Reform Trust in 2010, these issues are, for many, interdependent with or frequently related to their offending, either directly or indirectly.

In the view of a senior youth worker I spoke to, decriminalising children would shift the way young people were treated and we should not view child protection from the point of view of a criminal justice response. This does not mean that those young people are not dangerous in the community or that they should be left off with a hug and the hope for better behaviour. It simply means that we move away from punitive measures when dealing with children and towards protective and preventative measures.

The Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027 acknowledges the significant disadvantages faced by children involved in the youth justice system. Why are we saying that they have the same level of capacity as adults when we know that they are different cognitively? A different approach would pay dividends in breaking the cycle of crime. Studies by the University of Limerick, which are helpfully discussed in the Bills digest, show the kinds of factor that influence a young person's behaviour, for example, childhood adversities like homelessness, involvement in problematic peer groups and pro-criminal norms held by peers or families. Addressing these issues is complex and will need much more than legislation. According to the Bills digest, it has been noted that simply creating new offences is a low-cost response by states and that legislation alone only gives a political veneer to meaningful action. Aside from legislation, ongoing and targeted investment, particularly in respect of children who are subject to criminal exploitation, will be required.

The Palermo protocol defines an approach that considers this matter from a child trafficking perspective. Europol has done some work on this front. Are we taking a lead from its European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats, EMPACT?

Mr. Eddie D'Arcy, a former CEO of SOLAS who has spent his career supporting some of the most marginalised and potentially dangerous young people, said of the youth justice strategy:

Plans for the [Garda youth diversion programme] to target children under the age of 12 on the basis of their possible future criminal involvement is worrying. We are acutely aware, from both research and practice, that labelling children as "criminal" or "offender" creates additional risk factors for the child and can further drive them into long-term offending behaviour. Any project, regardless of its title, that can be identified by young people and their communities as being designed for "offenders" is not an appropriate form of prevention.

The inclusion of any initiative designed to support children as young as eight with specific needs in a Justice-led strategy is concerning. There are more appropriately placed social and educational services that could offer meaningful supports to these children and their families, including after school projects.

How we respond to children involved in crime is important.

The lack of intervention is a concern. I pulled out an article that Mr. John Mooney wrote in The Sunday Times a few years ago. The then Acting Garda Commissioner, Mr. Dónall Ó Cualáin, ordered an internal investigation after it was discovered that, between 2010 and 2017, the Garda had failed to pursue hundreds of young offenders who had committed serious crimes.

These were children who were not deemed suitable to enter into the youth diversion programme, a scheme that was set up to keep young people out of the criminal justice system. The investigation found that officers failed to take any meaningful action in a quarter of all those cases. I hope that has been resolved since. The fact that those crimes were misrecorded or there was no sanction failed the offender, just as much as it failed society. We are not talking about not doing anything, but we are talking about appropriate interventions, and turning a blind eye is not one of those.

Our current youth diversion programme is aimed at children involved in criminal or antisocial behaviour. It is aimed at children aged between 12 and 18, but often as young as ten, as per the Children Act 2001, but it existed prior to that in a more informal way. As the Minister of State indicated, it is not suitable for all situations. It depends on the nature of the offence, the attitude of the offender, and a number of other factors.

I share the concerns of another youth worker that the definitions of "adult" and "child" included in the Bill are too linear and might produce an unintended consequence. The implementation of the Bill as it stands would penalise peer-friend groups for the same activity in a different way due to the date of their birth. For example, if person A, who is aged 18 and 30 or 40 days and person B is aged 17 and 200 days, are convicted of criminal activity, will person A also be charged with directing person B without knowingly doing so?

What might be considered as an alternative would be the three-year rule. This Bill could include a provision whereby a three-year rule is allowed. Accordingly, person B would only be convicted of directing a child or young person to engage in a criminal activity if they are a minimum of three years older than person A. The Victorian model is 21 and obviously we have set it at 18, but there is a very thin line in terms of age. We often see 17-, 18- and 19-year-olds all being part of the same group, and it is important that we consider that. It may be possible to include a provision where the intent to groom or knowingly direct a child or young person to engage in criminal activity is another alternative. An alternative definition of youth is provided by the United Nations. For statistical purposes, it defines "youth" as those persons between the ages of 15 and 24, without prejudice to other definitions by member states. Twenty four years may well be too old, but I am just saying that there is an issue that needs to be looked at.

I want to refer to something else because it struck me as being relevant to the Bill. The new three-part RTÉ series, "Gaelic in the Joy" is really interesting. If anything, it reinforces some of the issues identified in the University of Limerick studies, which are included in the Bill digest. The ex-Dublin player, Philly McMahon, and comedian, Rory O'Connor, put the prisoners through a three-month educational and sporting programme with a view to teaching them essential life skills such as leadership, teamwork and co-operation, self-belief and the value of hard work. It is obviously done through the prism of playing a number of football matches. The last of the series is on tonight. It is really interesting to see the change in people over time and the way they have addressed some of those issues, in terms of it not being just about technical skills but a whole lot of other things. The match against the prison officers is on tonight's programme. After watching two of the programmes, I am left with the feeling that if the efforts and energies were put into some of the people that are featured in this programme, albeit that they have done serious things, as they would not be in prison if they did not, one could ask if they would have ended up in prison.

I want to quote from the former governor of Mountjoy, John Lonergan, who was on a podcast with the Dublin City Library and Archive project. When asked what was the biggest single factor in prison, right across the entire prison population, he said it was low self-esteem and very little confidence. He went on to talk about the importance of human connections, community and family. I remember a survey that was done in Mountjoy a good number of years ago and he spoke about it. He was asked if there were factors that he noticed in the survey. One of the points he raised is that the majority of prisoners were not involved in group activities as youngsters, including sports. That is a differentiator that is worth paying attention to. When we look at the economic evidence from the approaches that depend on the relationship between young people and professionals such as youth workers, it provides some indication of the potential gains suggesting that for every euro that is invested in mentoring, there is a return of €4.35. The National Youth Council of Ireland has continuously called for an increase in the budget provision for youth services in Ireland. If we consider the need of children and young people in communities, funding these services is a no-brainer when it comes to early intervention opportunities and accessibility.

The points that have been made on DEIS schools are very important, but sometimes we also need interventions outside of the school environment. The youth work service is a very obvious one, and social work and other services also require investment. There is no doubt there are people who are a risk to society. I am not saying that everything can be resolved through early intervention, but there is no doubt that it would show results if it was properly targeted. I compliment RTÉ on the programme I mentioned. It is exactly the kind of public service output that is helpful. People will watch it who might not normally watch a documentary.

I will make one final point about restorative justice. Arguably, it is something that is underutilised, and should be further embedded in our approach to engaging with children and young people involved in criminal activity. I would like to see that happen. I know this legislation is on a narrower point, but I ask the Minister of State to consider some of the points in particular. I refer to the very linear approach to the age and the kind of consequences that we might see, in addition to the use of restorative justice. There are other issues that we need to consider. The Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use could end up being a very important initiative if we take on board some of the things that might be difficult and unpopular for us to take on board. They may well take the money out of the system and then children may not be dragged into something that they should not be dragged into, so we are achieving it in a different way.

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

It is interesting when we have Bills where there is large amount of consensus, it often gives us the time in this House to talk about the other issues we would like to address to solve the core issue we are dealing with. I do not think we should underestimate the importance of the Bill. Deputy Catherine Murphy is right that there is always the potential for legislation to be a cheap way of looking like we are trying to solve a problem, but I do not believe that is the case in this situation. The reason I do not believe it is the case is because there is huge merit in this Bill. It is because it has come from the learnings in one of the area-based interventions we have made. We all know that communities themselves know what the solutions are to these issues. The findings of the Greentown study, led by the University of Limerick, identified how children were being groomed into criminal behaviour and the illegal drugs industry. Deputy Ó Ríordáin is spot on here. We have an opportunity in this Dáil to bring together a number of initiatives that I think have significant cross-party support. They are: the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use; the intervention by the Taoiseach to propose a child poverty unit within the Department of An Taoiseach; and the previous Taoiseach's, and programme for Government, commitment to roll out area-based interventions, or the north-east inner city model.

It is much bigger than one piece of legislation. It involves changes in policy on drugs and the treatment and services that come from that and changes in policy on education and the resources required. I am working with some of those groups calling for a DEIS plus intervention, which I think is necessary. It also involves a change in policies and practice on the ground in areas like job creation, social protection, Tusla and so on. This is an important step that forms part of a bigger picture. In this Dáil, there is significant support in government and in opposition to make changes. The only disagreement might be on how radical those changes might be. I speak to a tradition in my party that we would like a significant intervention to ensure the most vulnerable in society are protected.

I will now speak about what the Bill does. I wish to give credit to the now Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, who, in her former role as the Fianna Fáil spokesperson on children, proposed this, along with other Deputies who made similar suggestions. She came out to Ballymun and spoke to some of the agencies dealing with young people there. She said her initial inspiration was a particular family in which the father was encouraging his children to become involved in criminal activity, in petty burglary and so on. It was only when she came out to visit us in Dublin North-West that she realised that her Bill could also have a knock-on effect on kids being brought into the drugs industry. Sometimes we think there is a big divide between rural and urban Ireland but, in many ways, we are very similar.

This Bill decriminalises the child. I see the officials in the House, whose work I acknowledge. I hope I am interpreting the Bill correctly but until now, the person could be convicted of the crime the child was being convicted of. To ensure prosecution of the adult, there had to be prosecution of the child too. This Bill decouples that aspect. We have decriminalised the child in this scenario. It allows us to go after the adult and not have to prosecute the child. It also creates a new offence, which recognises the harm done by that adult to the child. Not only can the criminal behaviour be prosecuted, there is also the additional offence of compelling, coercing, directing or deceiving a child for the purpose of causing that child to commit a crime. That is important because there is something incredibly pernicious when an adult or person with power inveigles, coerces, directs or deceives somebody without that power or without that adult experience to commit a crime, who then becomes an innocent party in a criminal behaviour. It is an important intervention which comes from learnings on the ground in the Greentown initiative. We need to go much further. The Taoiseach's office has spoken about a sustainable way of rolling out the north-east inner city model. We talked about the child poverty initiative. Deputy Catherine Murphy will know that I made this case very strongly to the Department of Justice and the Secretary General at the Committee of Public Accounts in the past week. We must start getting progress on what we know is a commitment. There is a real desire at a political and official levels to get those area-based interventions in Ballymun and in places like Finglas, to support what is happening in Darndale and Cherry Orchard. I am sure Deputies across the House could talk about the most disadvantaged areas. We can finally break the cycle. All of the ingredients are there. This is one example of when you do it, a good legislative change comes back. Similar interventions are taking place in education, social protection and so on.

I spoke about the tradition in our party of looking after the most vulnerable. We also believe that in a village, you need the shopkeeper and the shop worker. We are generating huge economic resources in this State thanks to our management of the economy. We must use those resources to make significant interventions. We will do that by supporting those communities to come up with these task forces, giving them access to senior officials to engage with and coming up with solutions like this. I commend the officials and the Minister of State. I look forward to similar things from other area-based interventions.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. Like previous speakers, I was one of the first to welcome the Bill to outlaw the grooming of children into crime in 2021. "Fagin's law", as we called it, was a key piece of legislation for Fianna Fáil when we were in opposition, of which I was fully supportive then. Diverting young people from involvement in criminal activity is a key priority for me. The exploitation of young people and children is particularly concerning. People are preying on the vulnerable and it has to stop. It is vital that a criminal adult may be prosecuted for a crime committed by a child who has been incited to do so by the adult. We need the mechanism in law for recognising the damage done to the child. It is important to penalise adults for the exploitation and harm done to the child. It is exactly what the Minister of State said this Bill is about - the child.

We must tackle crime at all levels in all areas of our society, from stopping gang bosses from committing the most awful crimes, to preventing them from leading our young into a life of crime. Criminals need to know we are deadly serious about ensuring they cannot exploit our young for their own ends. We must also be serious about ensuring that crime does not pass down through generations.

Sadly, in Carlow, like in other areas, there are challenges, particularly among 18- to 25-year-olds. There are some criminal activities and there is also anti-social behaviour, which I know is the situation across the country. We are lucky, however, to have the youth diversion programme in Carlow. When a child comes to the Garda's attention for a low-level criminal behaviour, they are then offered the services of Carlow regional youth service to try to address the issue and reduce the behaviour. This a successful project and while funding is available for it, we must examine funding youth services to re-engage children out of a route of crime. There must be funding for initiatives for young people in the evenings and at weekends. The focus should be across the country on children having places and spaces to engage in youth-centred activities, not of a criminal kind.

The Minister of State will be aware of the old saying about "idle hands" and all that. Let us work on engaging children after school with free, accessible and enjoyable child-centred programmes that do not depend on the resources of parents. It is a huge challenge.

The GAA is a great model to engage children but not all children are into football or hurling. Taking the example of parish clubs, I would like to see parish basketball courts, free swimming lessons, horse riding, theatre, arts, coding and music clubs, all of which are accessible to those of means. It is often those who see the riches crime can bring who enter into it - criminals actively promote what crime can pay to recruit young children into their world.

Some children get into trouble, so we must examine prevention and get to the children before they offend. I spoke recently about the importance of a community centre for Carlow, which entails staff working with our communities and listening to them. We must listen to the voices of our communities and tailor the response to them. While I am speaking about communities, I can only again highlight Carlow town, which has a big population, yet only has two community garda. The Minister of State said it is not in his remit but I ask that it be highlighted that we need more than two community garda in Carlow town.

We must invest in youth and community work and let the community have its say on how to support engaging children away from crime. If a child is beyond diversion and is already in the courts system, it is probation. We must investigate projects that work with young people in trouble and support for families whose children have been groomed by criminals. That was something that came up when I spoke to a family recently. They feel there is no support for parents. We must examine that issue. I ask that we try to put more funding and supports in place for parents.

I wish to speak about Carlow again. There is no probation project in Carlow. It is important to me.

We do not want those already in the courts system in the programmes for the children we are trying to keep out of the courts system, so we need a separate initiative, what is called a probation project, from the diversion project. I believe there is such a probation project running in Athy in County Kildare, which is only half an hour from Carlow town. I am sure our Ceann Comhairle is aware of it. This is an excellent initiative. There are probation workers in Carlow, but there is no designated project for Carlow. I ask that this be examined. We need a service to work with the communities. We need to show that. I again ask that we consider this type of project for Carlow.

Breaking the link between criminal gangs and the vulnerable young people they try to recruit will be essential if we are to divert young people from lives of crime. This legislation will seek to further protect children from being drawn into a life of criminality, with all the potential lifetime consequences that entails. It also seeks to further disrupt the activity of criminals in our communities. This is also what we are trying to achieve. We must invest in prevention, support and communities. That is the most important and best way to move forward in this regard.

I welcomed the new youth justice strategy in 2021. I again acknowledge the work done by the Minister of State, Deputy Anne Rabbitte, in this area before assuming her current portfolio. She is as passionate as I am in looking at ways to prevent the recruitment of children into engaging with criminal activity. We must make interventions and criminalise those adults who induce children to commit crimes. We have a long way to go in doing this.

We must go into communities that have high rates of criminality and examine the range of issues affecting them, including the needs of the young people in these areas, the opportunities available to them and the root cause which leads to criminal activity taking hold. I am delighted to be part of that process and I welcome this initiative. There have been many challenges in this area and we need to do a great deal more. I know it is not within the remit of the Minister of State but community gardaí have a major part to play in that regard. I will continue to highlight this issue. I again welcome this legislation.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State will get general support for this legislation. We all know about the engagement of children in criminal activity. We can call it what we will, whether grooming or whatever else. We know this particular issue exists concerning drug crime in particular and that we have many streetwise criminals at this stage who are only too willing to circumvent the law and to use and abuse people. At this stage, we are talking about kids, even before they are teenagers, operating as runners, lookouts and whatever else. People have moved on from using bikes to using e-scooters for delivering drugs as part of drug-dealing enterprises.

Drug crime and drug problems are everywhere. Not a place in Ireland is untouched by cocaine addiction. We hope the Citizens' Assembly on Drug Use can look at a more novel approach than what we have had to date because we are not getting on top of this problem. We will have to ensure we have the policing infrastructure to deal with it and we must penalise anyone grooming or using kids.

In certain deprived areas, funding and resources have been lacking and we have not made the necessary family and community interventions. That work needs to be done. The Greentown project is being operated in some places. We must also do whatever we can in respect of youth diversion projects. We would nearly need to put them on steroids to get to where we need to be in this regard.

If we are talking about drug debt intimidation, we will be talking about some of the characters involved. In recent days and weeks, I have been dealing with many people. People have gone to carry out threats have themselves probably been under pressure. They have run up debts and found themselves, through making bad choices I might add, under pressure and at the wrong end of things with these drug gangs.

It is a perfect business model for the main drug dealer. He does not have to worry about anything. He can send out somebody to do things. From his perspective, he can send out an idiot and the person concerned is under pressure. People in this situation, in some cases, are then willing to be used and allow pressure to be put on somebody's mother or grandmother. Those are despicable scenarios. The initiatives in this legislation are part of what we need to put in play in addressing this problem, but if we are going to be real in respect of the entirety of the problem we have organised crime, drug crime and whatever on the streets of our towns and villages, and all the rest of it, we need to be far more novel. I support this legislation, but-----

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Tá an t-am caite.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Okay. Go raibh maith agat.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Next, we go to the Regional Group. Deputy Peter Fitzpatrick is sharing with Deputy Toíbín. I will, however, have to interrupt him after five and a half minutes to ask him to propose the adjournment because our time will be up.

Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Drogheda is the largest town in the State, with a growing and diverse population. The town, however, has faced significant challenges as a result of the actions of those involved in criminal activities, including activities linked to organised crime. This has severely affected the feeling of safety and security for members of the local community in recent years. Similarly, Dundalk faces significant challenges in respect to criminal activity. This has been made worse by its close proximity to Newry. The impact on Drogheda of the Louth-Meath county boundary, specifically relating to the policing of the Laytown and Bettystown areas of east Meath, must also be addressed.

We are all, therefore, committed to building stronger and safer communities and implementing policies designed to create a pathway to divert young people away from a life of crime. The programme for Government contains two commitments in this regard. These are to legislate to address the coercion and use of minors in the sale and supply of drugs and the criminalisation of adults who groom children to commit crimes. This Bill is designed to fulfil both these commitments by recognising and making punishable in law the harm caused to children by drawing them into a life of crime.

The proposed new law is designed to address this harm directly. The Bill is designed to prevent criminal networks from exploiting young people to commit offences and aims to break the link between gangs and vulnerable youths. Those found guilty of these new offences face imprisonment of 12 months on summary conviction and up to five years on indictment. The child concerned does not have to be successful in carrying out the offence for the law to apply. While there has been a concerted effort on the part of An Garda Síochána to bring those engaged in violence to justice, the Garda will be given additional powers under this legislation to make such grooming activities a separate prosecutable offence and to intervene locally to prevent offences from taking place. I support this prevention measure entirely.

It is well recognised internationally that a more considered response by justice systems to young adults in the 18- to 24-years age group may produce better results. In line with this view of prevention, I wholeheartedly back this legislation. However, the identification of the appropriate diversion process for young adults is paramount in rooting crime out of communities at all levels. The Greentown project approach, which was produced at the school of law in the University of Limerick, outlines how the influence of criminal networks increases the level of offending by a small number of children and traps them in offending situations. This legislation has been influenced by the Greentown project, which analyses how criminal networks recruit and control vulnerable children. It recognises and identifies the scale of the problem in the State and develops a bespoke form of intervention.

Rooting crime out of our communities means we must show criminals that we are deadly serious about ensuring they cannot exploit young people for their own ends. Breaking the link between criminal gangs and the vulnerable young people they try to recruit will be essential if we are to divert young people from lives of crime. We must be equally serious about ensuring that crime does not pass down through generations by supporting education, targeted initiatives and funding, investing in community-based, multi-agency youth diversion projects which seek to divert young people who have become involved in crime or antisocial behaviour and supporting wider prevention work in communities and with families at risk. Youth diversion is all about ensuring young people avoid punishment and consequences in the criminal justice system. It is about recognising that many young people who stray from the proper path simply need support and direction to get their lives back on track. It must be ensured that these supports are available to every child in the State.

These diversion projects will provide an excellent route for children who have already been ensnared in criminal activity. This is important work in respect of the protection of children from criminal exploitation and will form the heart of these legislative proposals. Cross-agency co-ordination is essential. I look forward to working with the Minister of State in implementing this legislation. Legislation alone, however, is not enough. Properly resourced and motivated police, social care workers and prosecutors are required to address this form of exploitation. This is an expensive and complex task. Investment and funding must also be considered, alongside funding devoted to education, prevention measures and community-based initiatives.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach's trip to Washington this year was defined by a number of gaffes. I was particularly alarmed by the statement he made on the topic of human trafficking, when he said, "It's not a particular issue for us in Ireland because our seas are so vast that people can't get there on small boats". I had to read this twice when I saw it reported from Washington. It may have come as a significant shock to the United States Government, which, only a few years earlier, had marked Ireland out as a watchlist country in terms of human trafficking.

Anyone in this House who has done an ounce of research on this topic will know that human trafficking does not necessarily involve the crossing of international borders and that much of the trafficking in this country is domestic. Much of it relates to the sexual exploitation of children and we have a very serious and severe problem with trafficking in this country. The Taoiseach's comments illustrate how little he knows about this key issue. The Taoiseach and his colleagues could benefit from familiarising themselves with the definition of "human trafficking". I recommend that, for once and for all, the country would stop conflating the issues of human trafficking, migrant smuggling and immigration. Human trafficking is a stand-alone human rights issue that affects Irish nationals. It is not something that always involves boats, seas and activities in the dead of night.