Maria McCormack (Sinn Fein)

I am delighted the Minister is back in this House. I am deeply troubled by what I am witnessing in our community in Laois and surrounding counties. I am not alone in this concern. Over the past week, I have received numerous calls from frightened and frustrated residents who feel like prisoners in their own homes, living in fear of reckless behaviour and repeat offending. One constituent said to me that the State is absent when it is needed most.

This issue is all over our local media, including the Laois Nationalist. What has pushed this into the national spotlight is the extraordinary comments made by Judge Andrew Cody in Portlaoise District Court last week. He said, "The Government is failing to protect the citizens of the State." This is a damning verdict from one of our own judges, a judge, who, in fairness, has been forced to watch the same cohort of young offenders appear before him week after week, having committed crime after crime with no meaningful consequence, no available detention space and no sign of urgency from the Government. Judge Cody went further saying:

There is a core to this gang here in Portlaoise who continue to commit crimes without any fear of recrimination. They do so because they know the courts, the gardaí and society have been handcuffed, while they walk free.

These are children, some as young as 14, stealing cars, tearing through our streets, driving the wrong way down the M7, smashing up businesses, destroying public property and uploading it all on TikTok for clout. It is being glamorised. It is being encouraged and we are being humiliated. Judge Cody was clear. The Garda and the courts are doing their best but he said the ultimate sanction and deterrent of imprisonment has been taken away because Oberstown Children Detection Centre is full.

This week, gardaí arrived with a court order to place two of these teenagers in custody. They waited 25 minutes at the gate of Oberstown only to be told that it was full. They were handed a sealed letter and told to bring the teenagers back to the Garda station. What message does that send? What message does it send to the victims, the public and the perpetrators? We are witnessing the complete breakdown of a youth justice system, not due to the negligence of the Garda or the Judiciary but due to Government failure. There are simply no places left to put these young people in when they offend, and the crime continues. As Judge Cody said, these youths have done so in a shocking and dangerous manner without any regard for their own or anyone else's lives. The lesson being learned by these juveniles is that they can continue to commit crime without any consequences.

This just cannot go on. I am calling for immediate action, including the emergency expansion of Oberstown or the provision of temporary regional youth detention facilities; a full Government-led response to organised youth crime because that is on the increase, day in, day out, particularly the grooming and recruitment tactics of gangs targeting vulnerable children; proper resourcing for gardaí to respond to these escalating crimes, including youth-specific detention and intervention units; and investment in diversion and early intervention programmes, not after the tenth arrest but when the first warning signs emerge. This is not about locking children away and forgetting about them; this is about creating a system that deters dangerous behaviour, protects the public and offers real structured rehabilitation, not TikTok fame. We need action. We do not need apologies. We need beds, not sealed letters, and we need justice, not headlines.