James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Minister, I, again, thank the Senator for raising this important matter. The Government is committed to tackling antisocial behaviour. As Minister of State at the Department of Justice, I was honoured to set up the antisocial behaviour forum, which has met on a regular basis since its establishment last year. Earlier this year, it produced recommendations around scramblers, both in terms of tackling, on a community basis, why the scramblers are being misused by young people and to try to direct their energies to more positive activities but also in terms of recommendations around road traffic laws to see if Garda powers can be strengthened where, despite interventions, people are still insisting on misusing scramblers, particularly in our cities. The antisocial behaviour forum has set up a sub-task force around knife crime. We are looking at what other areas it might tackle as well.

In addition, three pilot local community safety partnerships have been established. These are designed to take a holistic approach to safety issues in partnership with the communities. The work of the community safety partnerships is similar to the work of the local community development committees, LCDCs, in terms of bringing together all of the different actors within a community to address crime. An Garda Síochána can only do so much. We need to tackle the underlying issues and we need to bring in the HSE, the local authorities, Tusla and other relevant bodies to help take on any issue around antisocial behaviour.