Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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559. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the progress to date in reforming the youth justice system by her Department; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16076/22]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, Minister McEntee and I published the Youth Justice Strategy 2021 – 2027 on 15 April 2021.

The Strategy includes consideration of the full range of issues connected to children and young people at risk of coming into contact with the criminal justice system, including early intervention and preventative work, family support and diversion from crime, through to court process and facilities, supervision of offenders, detention and reintegration and support post release.

The measures in the Strategy are premised on the need to maximise opportunities to promote positive behavioural change and desistance from offending. This will require a sustained commitment to collaborative working between State agencies and community partners, as well as a commitment to prioritise resource allocation to address factors connected to early involvement in criminal activity and more serious offending patterns. The Youth Justice Strategy 2021 – 2027 is available on my Department’s website.

The Strategy strengthens and expands the role of the Youth Diversion Projects (YDPs), which are a fundamental support to the operation of the statutory Garda Diversion Programme and provide a vital ingredient in enhancing community policing partnerships. The Strategy promotes appropriate linkages and alignment with other community-based initiatives, including those supported by the Probation Service. Bringing the full range of relevant interventions together in a coherent and holistic response to youth crime will support the objective of diverting young people from crime and anti-social behaviour.

The Strategy expands the remit of the YDPs to provide a broader range of services for communities, families and children at risk, including family support and early intervention with children aged 8-12 years, as well as developing enhanced approaches to engaging with harder to reach children and young people who may have more entrenched patterns of offending. There are currently 105 YDPs nationally and the intention is to further develop this 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 the foundation of new projects where necessary.

Funding for YDPs has increased every year since 2015. €15.3 million was provided in 2019 and €15.6 million was provided for 2020. €18 million funding was provided for 2021 with a further allocation of €3m for the Greentown pilots, Bail Supervision Scheme and the Research Evidence into Policy Programmes and Practice (REPPP) project.

The additional €6.7m provided for in Budget 2022 represents an increase of one third in support for youth justice services. It provides the resources to kick-start delivery of key objectives in the Youth Justice Strategy and, in particular, the programme to expand and deepen the range of supports made available through local YDP services. The main elements are:

- Establishment of a limited number of new youth projects and boundary extensions of existing projects so as to ensure that the youth diversion services are available throughout the State by end-2022 or shortly thereafter.

- Enhancement of the youth diversion service, in accordance with identified local needs, to include:

- Early intervention and family support work

- Outreach with harder-to-engage young people

- Support for schools to retain challenging children

- Other specific initiatives e.g. in relation to anti-social use of scramblers and knife crime issues.

- Dedicated research and expert support, including best practice support for the nationwide project network, facilitated by the Research Evidence into Policy Programmes and Practice (REPPP) project team in the University of Limerick.

The Bail Supervision Scheme provides an internationally recognised approach to achieving bail compliance, supported by the REPPP University of Limerick partnership. The service has already been expanded beyond the initial pilot in Dublin to Cork and Limerick.

The Greentown initiative is a broad community-based programme to support children, families and communities most affected by criminal networks, and its development is strongly supported by An Garda Síochána. The Greentown Report recommended the design of a programme to include interventions with children and their families to help them withstand the influence of criminal networks. The Greentown Programme has been designed by the REPPP project team with the input of leading international expertise on crime and criminal networks, together with Irish scientific, policy and practice expertise in child protection and welfare, drugs and community development.

Pilot applications of the Greentown programme, developed by the REPPP, commenced in two locations in 2020 and will run for three years. The learning from these pilots will then be incorporated into mainstream YDP practice. This specially designed intervention programme was developed with international expert advice, to tackle coercive control of children by criminal groups which entraps them in offending situations. Funds are already available for the initial pilots from the Dormant Accounts Funds, with a total of €4.2m allocated over three years.

The implementation of the Greentown pilot programme is part of the Strategic Objectives of the Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027. This implementation process began with the establishment of the Governance and Strategy Group, and the Youth Justice Oversight Group. Both groups are chaired by my Department, which will provide oversight arrangements for Youth Justice Initiatives to ensure that there is a cohesive response in practice to the needs of particular cohorts of children and particular communities.

Development and reform of youth justice systems is being taken forward in the context of a specific objective within the Strategy. This objective will ensure that oversight of policy development and implementation takes full account of the situation of children and young people in situations more likely to give rise to offending behaviour, and their families, with a view to enhancing the effectiveness of policies, programmes and practices, and with regard to duties arising from section 42 of the IHREC Act 2014, and aligned with the reform agenda contained in “Our Public Service 2020”.

To achieve this the Department will work collaboratively to ensure that the prevention of harm relating to offending behaviour is mainstreamed into Government policies affecting children, young people and their families, including through:

a) the development of a successor framework to “Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures – the National Policy Framework for Children and Young People 2014- 2020” (BOBF);

b) the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland;

c) the implementation of other national policies and strategies including, but not limited to drug and substance misuse, mental health, community development, employment and training.

The Deputy will also be aware that almost €200,000 in funding has been made available to YDPs nationally, including in the Deputy's own constituency, for a community-based approach to tackling the misuse of scramblers and other similar vehicles and I thank the Deputy for his contributions to this issue.