Alex White (Labour)

Senator Fitzgerald made a very strong point about school drop-out rates. I support her call for a debate with the Minister for Education and Science or perhaps, more appropriately, with the Minister of State with responsibility for children who will be in the House later today on a separate matter. Allied to that, I refer to another startling report in today's newspapers from the Psychological Society of Ireland which is holding a forum this week. It conducted a survey and discovered that significant numbers of secondary school students in certain areas of Dublin were being recruited into gangs and, not only that, had regular access to guns and other firearms. Admittedly, the study is a relatively small sample but it should cause us great concern.

It follows on the heel of similar material we saw last week in regard to Limerick. It points to the need for this House to hold a debate and for Government and relevant Ministers to take action to address early intervention in communities and neighbourhoods, which is vitally important. We all support the gardaí and additional resources for them in tackling crime and violent crime. However, it has become fashionable to forget about the fact that many of these serious problems are due directly to long term chronic poverty and welfare dependency in communities where young children have no other route out of poverty than to very often take part in violent crime and become involved in drug abuse and the sale of drugs. Will the Leader ask the Minister for Education and Science or the Minister of State with responsibility for children to come to the House to debate these vitally important issues which very often escape our attention when talking about particular incidents of crime?

I noted the Taoiseach returned to the subject of salary increases yesterday. I thought he must have been emboldened by the spirited and enthusiastic defence of the salary increases by Senator O'Toole in the House last week because he compared himself to other European leaders and referred to the castles, yachts and everything else he believes they have. Does that mean the Government will finally abandon its refusal to understand that relative poverty is the proper indicator of poverty in this country? Until now it has refused to accept that as a key indicator. It seems the Taoiseach accepts relative poverty is the way to address these issues.