Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State. Last week many of us took time to speak to the young people who generated quite a musical racket outside the gates of Leinster House. They were accompanied by community workers from various parts of Dublin and made the case that the recent budget cuts would impact directly on youth services in this city. The overall message was that, as far as the Government was concerned, our young people were not a priority. One such community worker informed me they had carried out an in depth analysis of the funding available and concluded that the youth service they provided in their locality was costing the State €12 per teenager per week. Their analysis also concluded that because of the cut in funding to this community group, the youth service could not be continued. The protestors chose to portray graphically the loss to our young people by having some of them sit in a makeshift rubbish skip, a powerful image of the neglect shown by the Government in the area of youth services and especially early intervention.

There is no doubt about the value of a comprehensive community youth service. Such services have the potential to encourage every young person to grow into a fully rounded adult, prepared to play an active and positive role within his or her community and country. Last August I read an article in The Irish Times, a quote from which I cut out and retained. It was from a 16 year old volunteer operating from Summerhill in the north inner city. He stated:

I wanted to give something back. There's a stereotype that people my age aren't into volunteering, but my friends say to me 'fair play' ...Young people can get into trouble around here, with stuff like drugs, vandalism, joyriding. But it's not just getting young people off the street, it's teaching them new skills ... I get a lot of praise in school now. It's changed my attitude, I'm much more reasonable ... I think I'd like to go to college and become a full-time youth worker.

This is the real, long-term value to be achieved in continuing to invest in young people. We are discussing how the State deals with the fall-out from inadequate services and how best to care for those young people who find themselves on the fringes of society and must be taken into State care, not at a cost of €12 per week but closer to €4,500 per week.

The regulatory impact analysis report compiled by the Department of Health and Children in 2009 on this Bill highlights the significant costs associated with special care places. We spend more than €90 million a year to keep approximately 400 children in residential care. The Irish Association of Social Workers acknowledges that children must be accommodated based on their needs, but that the number of children in care could be reduced if adequate early intervention services were available. The president of the association has also stated the emphasis must be on early intervention to prevent young people being placed in care in the first place, but that the reality is most social care teams are running a crisis intervention service rather than a social work service. This message seems to have been lost on the Government. Rather than employ a long-term vision or put in place a long-term, well researched strategy, it seems to limp along from one crisis to the next, needlessly spending millions of euro to tidy up a mess which, with a little planning, could have been significantly reduced in recent years.

Internationally, there is a wealth of research in the area of early intervention and this is where most of our energy and finances should be focused. That research shows positive supports provided in the first few years of life can significantly impact on life chances by promoting emotional and physical development, especially among children from disadvantaged backgrounds. In particular, pre-school programmes to help children in poverty have resulted in less delinquency, a lower rate of school absenteeism, less need for remedial services and less likelihood of aggressive and delinquent behaviour.

In December 2007, the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs seemed to place some value on the effectiveness of early intervention by establishing an inclusion programme and allocating grants to seven selected organisations which represent or support young people who might be considered marginalised or hard to reach. The grants were offered to the organisations in order that they could support marginalised young people to become involved in youth participation structures and processes.

An independent evaluator was appointed to assess the impact and effectiveness of the inclusion programme and the conclusions reached by that evaluator are most interesting. The concluding paragraph of her report states:

The Inclusion Programme has been a resounding success in having a positive impact on the inclusion of marginalised young people in the youth participation process. In addition to the significant numbers involved in the projects in the programme, the recounted personal stories of the young people are testament to a programme that was well organised, well supported and meaningful. It is perhaps not that surprising that the Inclusion Programme has been such a success. There has never been a programme where organisations representing marginalised young people were allocated a specific stream of funding to ensure that the young people they represent are involved in youth participation structures. What is perhaps more surprising is that in a relatively short space of time, many organisations have come from a place of not being engaged with youth participation structures to one where they not only have awareness and knowledge of those structures but are functioning ably, some with significant numbers, within them. While this represents a great deal of progress in a very short space of time, it is important not to stop there. Participation in and development of the process currently involves and will continue to demand significant commitment and 'buy-in' from the participating organisations. It is important to acknowledge that without a specific drive to include marginalised young people in youth participation structures and processes, it is quite simply very unlikely to happen. It is that stark.

The message is that stark. Unless we put in place a comprehensive investment programme in our young people, we will continue to reap the results of that neglect for many years to come and the sort of emergency intervention provided for in this Bill could become more the norm rather than the very last resort.

Having highlighted the policy decisions that are needed to prevent our young people ending up in the care of the State, we must also look at the area of after care services for young people who, despite our best intentions, end up in our care. At present, there is no obligation on the State to provide after care services to young people once they reach their 18th birthday. This means that children who may have been in the care of the State for years are quite abruptly deprived of a right to essential support.

The difficulties with such a system are plain. Young people who may have experienced serious disruption during the course of their lives and have faced challenges that most of us do not face in a lifetime, can find themselves adrift. Contrast this with the situation of children who have had the benefit of a stable, supportive family environment throughout their childhood and adolescence. How many of us, as parents, would suggest that our obligations towards our children end at their 18th birthday?

Providing age thresholds in law can be necessary to establish clarity about the roles and responsibilities of the State, of parents and of young people themselves. However, we must never forget that such thresholds are always approximations and blunt instruments. It cannot be argued that a majority of young people who have been in care do not need support and assistance past the age of 18 and yet this is what the current system implies.

This Bill could provide a valuable opportunity to place the provision of after care services on a statutory footing and I would strongly urge the Minister of State to use the opportunity to make this vital amendment.

In 2009 the Ryan report highlighted the impact on vulnerable children of leaving the care of the State without proper supports. Considering the risks that such children are subjected to, including homelessness, addiction and crime, we must conclude that the State has an obligation not to abandon those children once they reach the age of 18 and to provide services to support them into adulthood. Indeed, refusing to provide such services will most likely have the effect of undoing any good derived from being in the care of the State in the first instance.

While Fine Gael welcomes the general intent of this Bill, it has many shortcomings and we intend to highlight these on the subsequent Stages. I hope that the Minister of State will work with us and all of the agencies charged with caring for our young people to ensure the final legislation is a comprehensive and caring document that has the best interests of our young people at its very core.