Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)

I certainly echo a lot of what Senator Cosgrove has said. Youth diversion from crime is fundamentally about prevention and addressing the root causes. I spoke earlier in the Chamber about root causes that can lead young people into criminality. We have to look at the root causes of any issue to actually solve it. Often these root causes are poverty, marginalisation, addiction, social exclusion, intergenerational trauma and systematic neglect of communities. When there is a failure to intervene early and support families living with and dealing with these root causes it creates a vacuum for criminal actors to fill by offering young people a false sense of inclusion and value and ultimately exploiting them. Addressing this requires us to increase young people's sense of belonging and value within society.

We have great organisations in Carlow and Kilkenny such as Ossory Youth and Carlow Regional Youth Services. They are doing really exceptional work in outreach, mentoring and early intervention. Their youth diversion projects and school community engagement help to build confidence, purpose and connection through meaningful adult mentorship. What is critical about this is that the work is long-term and needs to be person-centred and youth-led but in reality these services are really overstretched. They are often forced to prioritise the most at-risk child, due to staffing and funding, as Senator Cosgrove has said.What that means is we do not have early enough interventions before a child is labelled at risk or the most at-risk child. What about the other children, however? We need to see much earlier investment in youth services. Similarly, the National Youth Council does not have multi-annual funding and is not able to hire staff. It is a huge issue. In the North, there is much greater regulation and professionalisation of the youth sector and we need something like that down here as well.

Recent parliamentary questions tabled by my colleague, Deputy Farrelly, revealed that An Garda Síochána does not systematically record the number of strip searches involving under-18s or whether appropriate adults or medical professionals are actually present. I believe this highlights a really big gap in oversight and accountability in how we treat vulnerable young people in custody. It is quite disturbing that this data is not collected. The absence of data on how a minor may, potentially, be strip searched without an appropriate person raises serious concerns about transparency and adherence to child protection and human rights.

We also often hear in the media really derogatory language being used to describe young people who are involved in crime. I am sure many of us have been responsible for using that language ourselves and it is that self-reinforcement where people are pigeon-holed and demonised. I once heard a guy in the UK speak about his experience of the care system before he was arrested for murder at the age of 19 and served a life sentence. He said that when he was in the care system the young kids in the care system asked one another what they were in for. They used this language of criminalisation. He said he felt that the logical next step for him was to go into crime. So he got involved in a dangerous incident and stabbed someone but it was not something that he wanted to do. That speaks a lot to how children and young people can be exposed to the cultural norms of crime, and how they understand and value themselves, and align themselves with one another. It is because they lack positive role models and there is a lack of proper youth services. There has been systematic underfunding during the austerity years and services were cut. The root cause of all of these issues around marginalisation and poverty have not been properly addressed and I really wish we could centre this debate on that aspect. I know no-one is trying to talk about using the language of criminalisation about children because no-one is born a criminal and problems stems from their living conditions. We must commit to making this shift and hold ourselves, the people with whom we work and the communities that we engage with, responsible for making this shift. We need to move from punitive systems to early prevention and to adopt a rights-based approach that invests in youth work and supports families and communities to build resilience.