Aideen Hayden (Labour)

I welcome the Minister and congratulate her on her appointment, which reflects the Government's commitment to child care and child protection issues. I also congratulate Mr. Shannon on his excellent and comprehensive report. As with his previous reports, the common denominator is children who are the most vulnerable in our society. I agree with the Minister that resources are an issue. The four common threads in the current report are homelessness, the rights of children with mental health problems, children and the criminal law, and the trafficking of children and prostitution. The children affected, by and large, have experienced poverty. There is a significant common denominator between children who are at risk in all of these categories.

There are also a number of common threads in the report. For example, drug and alcohol abuse, mental health problems, leaving prison and leaving care are trigger factors for youth homelessness. Section 2, which deals with the rights of children with mental health problems, concerns a group that is vulnerable not only because of age but also because of mental health difficulties. As Senator Terry Leyden pointed out, the country does not have a proud record in the use of mental health facilities for social control purposes and, therefore, the statement in the report that vulnerable young people deserve to be heard is excellent. Ensuring proper review mechanisms are in place for children with mental health difficulties is critical. The setting up of mental health tribunals, allowing children aged 16 years and over and those under the age of 16 who are competent to consent their right to bodily integrity and to have consent sought from them at every point of their treatment, and establishing an advocacy service for children within the mental health system are among the steps we need to take to ensure some of the shameful events of Ireland's past do not occur again.

The Minister stated that youth homelessness was in decline.

That is an area in which it is difficult to assess the exact numbers involved. It has been particularly difficult in suburban and rural areas to estimate the numbers of youth who are homeless.

One of the recommendations made in the report is to discontinue the use of Garda stations for out-of-hours services. Anyone who has been involved in the youth homelessness sector would wholeheartedly support this recommendation. It is a well known fact that the children who are in this position are highly unlikely to report to a Garda station and would only do so as a last resort or not at all.

Most of the young people covered by the report come from family environments in which they experience poverty and are more likely to have experienced abuse and addiction. I endorse the point made by Senator Fidelma Healy Eames that these children can be identified. The authors of a longitudinal study of youth homelessness note that many of the young people they interviewed for the purposes of the study were known to the various agencies of the State, including the child care, youth homeless and criminal justice systems from a young age and for an extended period. The findings point to failures within numerous systems of intervention and at various junctures in the lives of children and young people. It is a very important point to take into account that the children are well known within the system. The experience is available within the education, health and social welfare systems to identify them at an age before their difficulties become something that will lead them down the pathway of youth homelessness in particular into the criminal justice system.

The statistics for children who leave the criminal justice system and the care of the State are shocking. I am not sure whether Members are aware that one third of all children who leave the care of the State experience homelessness within six months and two thirds within two years. It is a shocking statistic when one considers that the State is acting in loco parentis for these children. I endorse the calls made within the report for the State not to avoid its responsibility when a child reaches the age of 18 years. There are many references in studies of youth homelessness to young persons being required to leave a hostel on a Saturday on reaching their 18th birthday having entered on a Friday night. That is not a situation we would wish to see in the State. Experience shows that children who move to adult homeless services become long-term homeless and find it difficult to extract themselves from the situation. There is also a common thread between child prostitution, for example, and children who have left the care of the State and experienced homelessness.

The report makes a number of excellent suggestions. We have identified the need for greater co-ordination between national, local and voluntary services. Another suggestion concerns the provision of more comprehensive information databases that can be shared within groups. A further suggestion concerns out-of-hours services for homeless young people to reduce the need to engage in crime and prostitution. The individual assessment of needs is critical. We require a system that responds to the needs of the individual child, not one in which the child must fit in to the needs of the institution.

Individual solutions such as the removal of the upper age limit of 18 years for the provision of homeless and aftercare services and separating newly homeless children from those who are entrenched within the homeless service are critical. Co-ordination with schools is another critical aspect, as is the discontinuance of the use of Garda stations as part of out-of-hours services.

In the area of child care and the criminal justice system it has already been identified that clear guidelines are required for the sharing of information between the various agencies involved. Clarification is needed for third party disclosure in court cases involving children. Something that has not yet been raised in the debate is the need to put in place a bail support scheme to reduce the reoffending rate of young people by tackling the root of the problem.

The rapporteur is critical in respect of child prostitution. He did recommend the criminalisation of the grooming of children and ratifying the optional protocol to the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. He made other recommendations that were not listened to by previous Governments. I ask the Minister to take these criticisms by Mr. Shannon into account.

We have a duty to protect the most vulnerable. In this regard, reference has been made to resources. From a practical perspective, the reduction in crime, prostitution and youth homelessness levels would be beneficial both to the young people involved and society as a whole. There are many statistics for the cost of providing services once somebody has moved beyond a certain point in the system versus the cost of providing in advance for somebody who is sinking through the system. Within that context, I congratulate the Government on introducing the "Housing First" approach to homelessness, as it will make a significant difference within that category.

This is an excellent report. I commend Mr. Shannon and the Minister for bringing it before us today. Like other Members, I hope the excellent recommendations made in it will be acted upon. Many of them will not require extensive resources and for those that will require such resources, I am sure we can find certain banks which might like to forsake some of their gains and transfer them to the more vulnerable in society.