Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

521. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of children who have been referred to the Garda youth diversion programme in each division by year since 2013 to date in 2020, in tabular form. [41801/20]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy will be aware, Garda Youth Diversion Projects (GYDPs) are a fundamental support to the operation of the statutory Garda Diversion Programme and provide a vital ingredient in enhancing community policing partnerships. The projects are community based multi-agency crime prevention initiatives, which are funded directly by my Department.

GYDPs seek to divert young people who have become involved, or are at risk of becoming involved, in crime/anti-social behaviour away from future involvement with the Criminal Justice System. They are primarily targeted at 12-17 year old young people in communities where a specific need for the service has been identified. On average, the Garda Youth Diversion Projects engage with between 3,500 and 4,000 young people across the state in any one year. 

Currently there are some 105 Garda Youth Diversion Projects. The intention is to further develop the service so that it is available to every child in the State who could benefit from it, through an ongoing expansion of existing services and where necessary the foundation of new projects.

Further, the projects are being developed to provide family support to the parents of young people participating in the projects and are undertaking early intervention and preventative work. The role of the projects in relation to harder-to-engage young people is being enhanced and extended as part of the evolving Youth Justice system.  

My Department is supporting ongoing development of practice in GYDPs through the Action Research Project led by the University of Limerick. The Action Research Project works directly with front-line Youth Justice Workers from local projects to develop interventions and best practice. Based on initial outcomes from the Action Research Project and evaluations of a number of pilot projects, it is intended to develop proposals to expand the existing services, to ensure national coverage and a stronger focus on difficult issues such as the hard-to-reach cohort.

With regard to broader issues of youth justice, these are addressed in the draft Youth Justice Strategy 2020-2026. It is intended to shortly bring a final Strategy to Government. 

The information sought by the Deputy is published in the annual reports of the Committee to Monitor the Effectiveness of the Garda Diversion Programme, which is established under section 44 of the Children Act 2001.  The Annual Reports for the years 2012 to 2017 are published by my Department and are available at the following link  http://www.iyjs.ie/en/iyjs/pages/publications. 

The Annual Report for 2018 and 2019 will be published shortly, after they have been laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas.

In order to be of assistance to the Deputy the table below details the numbers of youth justice related incidents referred to the GYDP and the number of children referred to the programme for the years requested.  It should be noted that the figures provided for 2018 and 2019 are provisional.