Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We will get my name right one of these days. I thank the Minister for that response. With the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, I visited the youth justice programme there which was extraordinarily creative through Covid when it had to go out to meet young people. It had to change how it engaged with young people who were used to either visiting the centre and then did not want people coming to their homes. The programme was creative in working with the youth. Certainly, putting considerable resources into that would be very important because we need to give the young people that can get attracted to crime an alternative. It is very attractive to be a somebody in certain cohorts and to be supplied with jackets and runners. Mothers have spoken to me about how they combat that. They are working two or three jobs to try to combat the attraction for their young people. It is very important that we combat that in a very intentional way. We have been talking about the Minister coming down to visit the area. I know all of that is in train and I am very grateful. I am anxious to progress that and work, in particular, with the parish priest there, Fr. Michael Murtagh, who has been very good.