Gary Gannon
Dublin Central · Social Democrats · Ireland
“I will talk about that in a couple of minutes but before I do I want to come back to some of the things the Minister of State said in his opening speech, particularly the last paragraph.”
“It will create a scenario where vulnerable people will simply not be able to get up their street for potentially three days because there will be a multitude of different providers steaming up these streets, which were never created for such large vehicles.”
“Those things should not be in competition with each other. The remunicipalisation of waste is going to cost money. That is a simple fact, but public services often should operate at a loss.”
“He engaged with the evidence and with stakeholders and came to the same determination, namely, that what we have at present for waste management services, not only in Dublin but nationally, is no longer tolerable. It has led to a system that is clearly not efficient or not suitable for the purpose intended.”
“Does the Tánaiste recognise the scale of the chaos in our criminal justice system at the moment? Thousands of cases have been adjourned. Victims will await justice. Backlogs are building. We now have habeas corpus cases taking place in the High Court. The Minister referenced my flowery language.”
“I want to acknowledge Deputy Sherlock for her work in bringing forward this Bill. We in the Social Democrats will be supporting it. It is a shame that the Minister of State is not willing to engage further than to simply vote it down on the promise that a review will be released in an unspecified time.”
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“Far from helping dealers, decriminalisation takes away the smokescreen that lets them operate in plain sight. Some people say it is too complex to repeal section 3 but I would argue that is not the case. Section 3 is a stand-alone offence that can be repealed by a single Act of the Oireachtas. There is nothing complex about it except the political courage required to do it. In Oregon, for example, it was pointed out that after removing possession, drug use operated without sanction, which led to drug dealing and consumption in parks. That was their model, however; it does not have to be ours. If we were to repeal section 3 of the drugs offences Act, as expert testimony has indicated, we could and should replace it with council by-laws much as we have for alcohol.”
“I represent communities where drugs have done untold damage, families are devastated, people are living in fear of drug-related intimidation and organised crime feeds on poverty and despair. I understand why some people ask how this will make things better where they live. The answer is that criminalising the drug user has never made communities safer. It has not stopped dealers, dismantled networks or brought down levels of violence. All it has done is fill our courts, ruin young lives with criminal records and make recovery harder. When Portugal decriminalised, the police did not lose power, they refocused it. They shifted from arresting people with tiny amounts to targeting those higher up the chain. The weight of drugs seized actually increased.”
“I will talk at the end about the mechanisms we can put in place should we repeal section 3 of the Act. We have all heard the scare stories. We have been told decriminalisation will make things work, use will skyrocket, dealers will thrive, communities will become less safe. The evidence internationally tells a very different story. In Portugal, where they decriminalised over 20 years ago, injection-associated HIV infections have fallen, the number of people in prison for drug offences has dropped, drug-related deaths have declined and, crucially, drug use did not increase. That is because when we stop treating people like criminals, we create a space for them to be treated like human beings.”
“We cannot have a decriminalisation-lite model subsequent to winning the argument, hopefully, on decriminalisation. Decriminalisation actually means removing the criminal offence of possession for personal use. The citizens' assembly was clear on that, as was the previous Oireachtas committee on drug use. Everything else, the sale, supply, cultivation, manufacture, remains illegal. That is the distinction between decriminalisation and legalisation. Decriminalisation does not mean the free-for-all that some people fear, as has been expressed in the Chamber already. It does not mean drugs are sold in shops. It means people are not dragged through the courts or branded as criminals simply for struggling or making a personal choice that harms nobody else.”
“Any day of the week at the Circuit Court, there are people facing charges and offences and, in the vast majority of cases, if we could back over that person's life, we would see substance misuse, trauma and a form of substance misuse that is about self-medicating for traumas that may go back generations in some part. Every single day in this country, people of all ages are stopped and searched, charged and shamed, often for having been caught with a small amount of drugs for personal. In reality, that should be a matter for a GP and not a garda. Since our inception, the Social Democrats have always been clear that if a Government truly believes in a health-led approach, then it is time to act like it. That absolutely starts with the repeal of section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977.”
“I thank Deputy Sherlock and the Labour Party for bringing forward this motion. The opportunity to discuss decriminalisation can never come too soon. I welcome the opportunity to speak on it today. The motion states that we recall the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use, the interim report of the Oireachtas Committee on Drugs Use and the Misuse of Drugs Act. All we are doing is recalling them, because all of these measures, debates and conversations have been had, but the same policies remain largely in place despite the evidence the various initiatives have brought forward. We are stuck remembering promises that have never yet become policy. While successive Governments have talked about a health-led approach, what they have actually been giving us is a criminal justice system pretending to be healthcare policy.”
“The only outcome of that is the spoilt people themselves, who are predominantly privileged, who get to step back and tell us to look at what they did to undermine democratic norms in this country. We are where we are at this point. I would encourage those of us around the Chamber who, for example, believe in the Irish language, say they speak for social justice and have spoken about Ireland's place in the world as being one of peace to get over themselves for this moment, come out and show a bit of leadership, stand for something that is more than moaning and undermining, and demonstrate the courage of their convictions to stand for something that is beyond the 100% of their own beliefs. That would steer us well.”
“Now we see it here and we are told that only one small party is somehow not part of the establishment. Why exactly is that? Is that because the rest of us got out there early, found a candidate we supported, bought into a vision, and acknowledged that not all of us supported 100% of every ideal that person held but understood the difference between a person who spoke something authentic and somebody who just offered platitudes whereas others simply try to erode trust in the system because they themselves did not benefit from it and then present the fact that opinion polls have shown that 49% of people do not have confidence in either of the candidates reaches the point where some other wealthy people are encouraging others to spoil their votes?”
“We had the best part of 70 years in this country where it was only ever going to be two conservative politicians who would run for President, potentially, one from Fianna Fáil and one from Fine Gael, up until that was broken by Mary Robinson. Now we have a situation where there is a slightly different hue and, because privilege did not get its way, privilege now wants to deconstruct the system. I listened to Deputy Tóibín's contribution when he was introducing the motion. There were a lot of worthy aspects to the contribution but then it descended into how only Aontú was not part of the establishment. Surely we are better than that. Politics, at present, is quite disillusioning. We have seen that with Fine Gael debasing itself over the weekend.”
“I thank Aontú for bringing forward the motion today. Listening in to this morning's proceedings, it has been quite an interesting discussion. The motion includes some worthy measures. I fully stand over extending the voting rights to Irish citizens in the North of Ireland and even having a discussion about how nominations happen is something that we should do consistently but I cannot separate that from the fact that the reason we are discussing this today - it hangs like a spectre over the discussion - is ostensibly because a small number of essentially privileged people did not get to run in the race and, because the system did not work for them, they are now demanding that we change it.”
“I ask for a debate on the co-ordinated attacks by Government parties on the legal profession. It is a dark week in this House and it is important that Members of the Government reaffirm their commitment to the rule of law, which they have undermined this week in a shoddy attempt-----”
“The cost-of-disability payment will ease some of the pressure but it must be the start of something bigger, a turning point where we finally build a country that plans ahead, that provides and that gives families peace of mind. The name of the campaign is Before We Die. It is a plea, but it is also a challenge to build a republic that truly cares for people like Aoife, not after their parents are gone but while they are still here to see it. Those parents have already given everything. There is so much we can do for people with disabilities in this country. A minimum starting point would be to provide their parents with the certainty of knowing that their children will be cared for after they have gone. That is the essence of a republic. What else matters beyond that?”
“Respite is never a luxury; it is what keeps everything else standing. The third ask is to fix the funding model for disability providers. There are 30,000 people working in this sector. They need stability to plan, hire and keep delivering care with dignity. This is not charity, it is the essence of what it means to be a citizen. Last night in Ballybough, every parent told me the same thing: they do not want sympathy, they want certainty. They want to know their children will be safe, valued and loved when they are gone. We call ourselves a republic that cherishes all its children equally, but if we continue like this, leaving families to carry the emotional and financial burden of the State, then those words simply mean nothing.”
“We need a cost-of-disability payment and I would welcome it wholeheartedly, but if we stop there we will miss a deeper truth, which is that the cost of care is being paid every day in exhaustion, in anxiety and in the quiet panic of ageing parents who fear dying before their children are safe. Love should never be a substitute for the State. If the Government is serious about equality, the people I met last night asked for three things. First, they asked for the creation of a national residential care plan for adults with disabilities, that the Government publish clear targets and provide ring-fenced funding and that it close the shortfall of between 800 and 2,300 residential places within its lifetime. Second, they asked the Government to restore respite care to at least pre-recession levels. Families need time to rest and recover.”
“The services that should support them are stretched to breaking point. St. Michael's House had five respite houses before the recession and now only has one. Providers are running on deficits. Staff are leaving. Supports arrive in emergencies but never as a right. The National Federation of Voluntary Service Providers has warned that families are in crisis and services are in survival mode. That is what I saw last night in Ballybough. I saw people who have given everything and are still living in fear not of their death but of what happens afterwards.”
“Tony and Susan are in their seventies and have loved and cared for Aoife every day of her life, but what they asked me and what every parent in that room asked in their own way was what will happen to their children when they are gone. More than 2,000 adults with intellectual disabilities are still living at home with their parents and 500 of those carers are already over 80. More than 1,200 people under the age of 65 are in nursing homes not because that is what they need, but because there is nowhere else for them to go. That is not a care system but a crisis disguised as normality. These families have held up Ireland’s disability services through sheer love and determination but they are exhausted. They live with the constant fear that when they can no longer lift, feed or comfort their child the State will not be there.”
“Each of them carried a picture of their now-adult child who they provide care for every day. They looked at us, as people they had elected to represent them, told their stories of the care they provide to their sons and daughters and then asked of us the simple question of what will happen to their adult children after they pass away. When any of us who hear those stories look into the whites of the eyes of the people who are asking us that question, we cannot help but wear it on our skin and make a commitment we will carry that story into the Chambers where we make the decisions that have impacted their lives. The question of what will happen after they die is at the heart of the campaign and is one no parent should have to ask. Among them were Tony and Susan, whose daughter Aoife is 42. She is bright, funny and full of life.”
“It is the emotional cost of care; the anxiety for those who to provide care to a loved one. Last night I attended a meeting at the Ballybough handball alley alongside Deputy Sherlock. I am sure that for every one of us who has the privilege of doing the job we do a week probably does not go by without meeting a person or hearing a story that stops you in your tracks. Last night I was invited to the initiation of a campaign group called Before I Die. There I met more than two dozen parents. These were mothers and fathers who have spent their entire lives caring for their sons and daughters with intellectual disabilities. I was at the bottom of a row of seats. In front of me were about two dozen parents of all ages. Some were in their 80s and some were slightly younger. Some had gone through a divorce and others had lost a husband or wife.”
“I acknowledge Sinn Féin for bringing forward the motion. Without question we will support it wholeheartedly. A cost-of-disability payment is long overdue. It is fair, it is practical and it recognises what the State has known for years, which is that living with a disability in Ireland carries a very real financial cost. Its omission from last year's budget was profoundly disappointing. The Government’s own Indecon report found that people with disabilities face extra costs of between €9,000 and €11,000 every single year. The ESRI confirmed the same pattern again this year. Households with a person with a disability are far more likely to live in poverty. There is another cost I want to talk about. This cost is not seen in a budget or found in a balance sheet.”
“I support Deputy McDonald’s call for a public inquiry into Children’s Health Ireland. In addition, I propose an amendment under Standing Order 35(3), namely to call for statements on the peace plan for Gaza. All of us are being contacted in our offices daily by people who are seeking to understand what exactly the plan means and hoping it will bring peace. We want to know what it means in relation to the occupied territories Bill-----”
“We will see more young people criminalised effectively for being poor, more families without homes, more women sleeping on prison floors and more Ministers congratulating themselves on a responsible budget. It makes no sense, it is not responsible and it is not inevitable. These are political choices. The evidence is there. Experts have consistently told us what will work but year after year the Government ignores it because the real investment, the kind that changes lives rather than headlines, cannot be measured in quarterly returns. We cannot keep doing this. We cannot keep repeating the same cycles of neglect and then acting surprised when they lead to the same forms of social breakdown that are often lamented from the centre-right quarters of this Chamber.”
“It is about the choices that reveal a Government's values: a Government that can fund hundreds of million for new prison spaces but cannot find the courage to fund early intervention programmes for young people at risk; a Government that celebrates corporate windfalls but ignores the social collapse happening in plain sight in our capital city. There is almost nothing in this budget that deals with early intervention, nothing that breaks the cycle of poverty, trauma and addiction that keeps communities trapped. Instead, we keep chasing the symptoms and not the causes. If that continues, I am absolutely certain we will be back here next year debating the same problems, and the year after that and the one after that.”
“It funds 26 extra beds. Expanding cell spaces does not solve overcrowding. It just gives us more space to repeat the same failures. Even with the spaces, we are being told our prison population is currently operating at about 118% over capacity. Even with the type of investment in this budget and what the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, aims to reach, that actually only brings it down to 104% overcapacity. That is mental as logic. If we invested even half of that money into prevention, housing and rehabilitation we would not need more cells at all. One would think that the Minister for justice, of all people, a man who spent a lifetime listening to and presenting evidence, would know better than to ignore it when applying it to his legislation. This is not just about justice spending.”
“Yet, when you open budget 2026 you see the same failed logic being baked into a system again. The prison service allocation for the next year is €579 million. The Government is literally building its way deeper into imprisonment in a country where seven out of ten people who go to prison will reoffend within three years. Meanwhile, the probation service, one of the few services that actually helps people to get out of prison, gets an increase of just €6.7 million. Youth justice gets €7.3 million. That is less than 3% of what is being spent on expanding cells. At the Dóchas Centre last night, 27 women slept on mattresses on the floor. Government Ministers are talking about the expansion of prison services when women were sleeping on the floor just last night. That prison is running at 140% capacity. What does this budget do?”
“I give credit where it is due. When a State actually sees something that can be transformative there are times when we can do that. For me however, it is about how do we not see the whole picture, because right now Ireland, in all our constituencies, is at a crisis point. You can feel it when walking down the streets of this city. We heard it today during the Oireachtas committee on drug use when we had groups in from Epic, Empowering People in Care. Social workers attended who work in special care units and are being left to manage children detoxing off drugs because the addiction and mental health infrastructure simply is not there. I recognise the fact we are also celebrating World Mental health Day today. That is not what the service was designed for, and it is certainly not what those young people deserve.”
“If we really believe that strong companies make a strong country, surely a second tier of child benefit targeted at families living in poverty would deliver an economic and social return that far outweighs the tax breaks we have seen from the Government. The difference is that those dividends would not show up in the balance sheets of Burger King or McDonald's, they would show up in a vulnerable child finally getting support from a proper State safety net or in carers being valued for the essential work they do every single day. I agree having some positivity is important. We have seen some proper investment, for example in the League of Ireland academy system. That is good. The expansion of the basic income for the arts actually provides a net of security for a cohort of people who put a lot into the economy.”
“There has been a lot of talk from the Government benches this week about economic stability and about protecting our competitiveness. The previous speaker just verified that. That is absolutely fair enough. However, I believe that this year the Government has chosen big corporations over people who need protection the most. If one wants to make an argument that multinationals are vital to the economy, which clearly they are, let us be consistent. Investing in people is every bit as economically transformative as investing in profits. A report a couple of years ago by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul calculated the cost of poverty to this State to be about €4 billion a year.”
“We have to invest in top athletes like Kate O'Connor and also in the people who will probably never become athletes but will develop civic engagement and civic responsibility. They need changing rooms and facilities, and they need the State to take an interest. That also reaps rewards, just in very different ways. A lot of good work comes from this programme and I believe we can expand on that. I ask the Government to look at where we can make an impact, which would bring its own rewards.”
“We need only look at some of the athletes we have been most proud of in the last couple of weeks. Kate O'Connor said recently that her father would soon have to return to work on a job share arrangement simply to provide a steady income while still coaching her towards the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. That is one of Ireland's brightest medal hopes talking about the fact that her dad will have to go back to a job share so we can potentially scream with delight for her during the Olympics in a couple of years’ time. Investments need to be made across the board. Some require event management, such as what happened over the weekend and will happen in two years, and some just require leadership.”
“At the same time, it is infinitely more important because it is about what happens in our communities. For example, in Dublin Central in the north inner city, which I am proud to represent, and in the south inner city, there is no football pitch or GAA pitch. If someone wants to play rugby on the north side of Dublin, where exactly would they go? The facilities are all over on the south side. There is a dearth that requires examination. Are we expecting people who are probably already struggling to fill out the forms to get the cultural and collaborative capital that is needed for that? We need to see the gap that is there and then seek to fill it. That is where investment really matters - when, as a State, we identify gaps and go in to try to penetrate through them.”
“The Government recently allocated €56 million to the Ryder Cup, which takes place in two years’ time. I now see the billionaire J.P. McManus coming out and calling for another €30 million of State investment on top of what has been given. I get that. We can quantify those types of events in terms of the hotels that are filled and the number of tourists brought in. I absolutely screamed with delight and pride the other day when Shane Lowry scored. I appreciate all of those factors, which can be quantified in terms of hotel rooms and so on. However, the type of investment in sporting infrastructure, football pitches and facilities for young people who will probably never achieve a medal, never play in the Premier League or never see me cheering for them on a Sunday on the television is more difficult to quantify.”
“My eagerness to speak on this subject stems from the fact that I understand sport has an incredible impact, not only in our communities and in the lives of the people who get to benefit from it. When we debate the impact of the sports capital programme, the large-scale sport infrastructure fund and the major sporting events programme, it is important that we talk honestly about how we measure success when it comes to sport in this State. Recent discussions have taken place in regard to the NFL, for example. There was a conversation about €10 million being invested, which brought in 30,000 visitors to the city and all that stems from that. I see the logic of this and I do not wish to cast aspersions on it. Those events have an economic impact that is worth acknowledging. The same goes for the Ryder Cup.”
“It is a plan to manage occupation under a new banner but, even still, we all hope for its success just so it can bring the genocide and slaughter to an end. We should lead the call for the suspension of the EU trade agreement with Israel every single day. We should call for international law to be respected, continuously amplify calls for accountability at the International Criminal Court and stand against attempts by powerful states to repackage injustice as diplomacy. Ireland's voice matters because we know what it means to depend on law and not money. If the EU cannot or simply will not act and if the US proposes only management of the status quo , then Ireland must continue to insist that Palestinian lives are equal and that international law must mean something real now more than ever.”
“It was almost a year ago to the day when the Taoiseach came before the foreign affairs committee and promised us that the enactment of the occupied territories Bill would be one of the first acts of the Government should he be re-elected. That promise has not been fulfilled. We are now presented with a US plan that is dressed up in the language of peace but which, in reality, entrenches injustices. It proposes outside control over Gaza, foreign overseers to manage reconstruction and an economic package without political rights. It speaks of stability but offers no genuine sovereignty, no pathway to Palestinian self-determination and no accountability for those who have unleashed devastation upon devastation upon its people. It is not a plan for peace.”
“However, two years on, thousands upon thousands of people have taken to the streets of Ireland to demand that we turn those words into actions. There is still so much more we can do. Across the European Union, too many member states have failed the test of conscience. Countries that define themselves by the principle of "never again" continue to block the suspension of the EU-Israel association agreement, even as evidence grows of genocide, of the war crimes we are witnessing every day and of collective punishment. Others are hiding behind process or empty declarations but the effect is the same; Europe has chosen trade and politics over human rights.”
“I will begin by joining Deputy Gibney in welcoming her friends Bushra and Mohammed to the Chamber. Their presence here is really welcome and we hope they will be joined by Bushra's other children very shortly. I will also acknowledge the 22 citizens who are on board the flotilla heading for Gaza, two of whom are colleagues of ours. They are bringing medical supplies, including prosthetic legs. All of us across the Chamber who know the people on board are genuinely fearful of what might happen to them as a consequence because we know who they are facing. Ireland's voice has stood out on Gaza precisely because the bar has been so low. In a sea of silence, or worse, complicity, Ireland has spoken at times with clarity and humanity. That is something we absolutely should be proud of.”
“When we talked about tripling the banking levy, he talked about how we also have to care for lone parents, children experiencing poverty and people with disabilities. We do not need to pit vulnerable groups against other vulnerable groups. There are other ways. We are talking about the bank levy. We do not need to talk about people with disabilities. The Social Democrats' fully costed budget tomorrow will include measures for people with disabilities, to remove 40,000 children out of poverty and to abolish the means test for carers. There are choices. Tonight's vote, which the Government is not allowing us to have, would have come down to the choices the Minister is making for family carers.”
“According to Family Carers Ireland, two thirds of carers experience financial distress. Almost half say they have to cut back on essentials like heating and food to make ends meet. Many are caring around the clock, with no pension, no security and often in total isolation. On top of that, they are put through an intrusive and bureaucratic process that judges them not on the care they provide but on their household income or that of their spouse. It does not make sense. In what world is it acceptable to make the lives of carers, people who are already stretched beyond breaking point, even harder? The Minister told us that abolishing the means test is too complicated and that there are other pressures.”
“The Minister has said there is very little between us in the sense that all of us are seeking to remove the means test for carers. However, time is the difference. A means test that is phased out over the next four years is four more years of carers having to justify their poverty, with some having to stand beside and be based on the income of a partner and others simply having to miss out because their means are just a little bit too high, even though the contribution they give is far more. The motion we bring today is simply about a choice. It is a recognition that we can abolish the means test for carers in this budgetary cycle to take away the strain, stress and anxiety for anyone who has to justify their means before they can contribute in the manner that they do. The facts speak for themselves about the Government's choices.”
“Earlier this week, my party leader, Deputy Cairns, asked a very simple question. In what other profession in this country are people subjected to a means test, just to be recognised for the work they do? It is a stark question that gets to the heart of the matter. That is what this is about. Carers are professionals in every sense of the word. They do the work that is essential to the running of our health system, work that saves this State over €20 billion every single year, yet they are treated as though their contribution is somehow lesser and that they should be judged before they are asked to serve. It is an old adage at this point but politics at its very heart is about choices. Next week, we get to see the choices of this Government.”
“The youth work services I engage with include the Diamond Project in the Belvedere Youth Club, which is working with about 15 young people who would previously have been in the throes of all the negative commentary that I often bring to the Chamber, but through restorative justice practices, it has taken those young people and worked with them intensively, and they are no longer in the criminal justice system, saving the State an absolute fortune, but more importantly, probably saving their lives. That is the type of intervention that we need. It is considered, targeted and measured. In the absence of that, we are continuing to throw money at outcomes that we have not yet seen to be successful.”
“The displacement factor when the gardaí do that drives problems into the north inner city. We effectively have places at the moment where policies of containment are going on, with the idea being that if this is happening there, it is not spilling over into the more commercial part of the city centre. The people who are most tasked with addressing that, in the absence of real Garda or State involvement, are our youth work services.”
“I thank the Minister of State for his response. The north east inner city task force is referenced quite a bit in the Chamber and other Deputies ask for similar schemes to be applied in their own areas. Why would they not? A substantial amount has been allocated over a nearly seven-year period. We should remember why that task force was initiated. It was initiated to confront the crime, drug-dealing and violent feud that tore the soul out of this city, but looking at the outcomes seven years later, despite considerable funding, we have drug-dealing and associated violence that is more insidious. Liberty Park in the north inner city is effectively a no-go area, such is the level of open drug-dealing, violence, and people almost being corralled into that space. I am here consistently calling for a safer city centre.”
“If we are to take these communities - and not just in the north inner city - and their safety seriously, we need to invest, not only in more community gardaí on the street, but in tackling the violent disrupters themselves who are operating in centres that are often underfunded and unsuitable.”
“It is often the youth workers themselves who are going in and talking to younger people who are often traumatised or in the throes of addiction. At this point, we are a stage where young people are now being groomed into drug gangs. These services are supported to a degree but not to the extent that would make a sustained difference to the areas. Last week, I was taken aback to see reports in the newspaper of something I probably understood but when I saw it written down it was blatant and that is youth workers being scared at the moment, such is the level of intimidation, drug-related intimidation and associated violence.”
“We do so consistently. Will the Minister of State commit to real, targeted, ongoing funding for youth services in Dublin's north inner city? I am not talking about ad hoc grants, pilots or press releases but about sustained investment in the very services that will keep our young people out of crime and give them a chance. In the north inner city, which is actually often discussed in a way, there are communities that experience generational poverty and trauma but we have always had people willing to stand up and give good community-orientated service to the area in which they grew up. Oftentimes, the services in which they do that are cut to the bone in terms of funding. These youth workers are those we ask to be on the front line of many of the issues that talk about when we talk about addressing antisocial behaviour.”
“When we hear the Government talk about tackling so-called antisocial behaviour or launching initiatives on community safety, we cannot talk about safety while continuing to underfund the very services that prevent crime in the first place. What I am talking about today is not in the abstract. In Mountjoy Square, a community after-school project has been asking for months for something as basic as a new front door because there are holes in the one it has. This is the reality. Kids in one of the most deprived parts of the capital are walking into a youth space that cannot even afford a proper front door while millions of euro are found for surveillance and policy initiatives. The Minister for justice has often told me I need to be more positive about the city. I have just suggested some real, positive measures that can be taken.”
“We also have youth workers feeling scared as they go about their daily lives trying to just do the job that is so important for the communities they serve. I give a particular shout-out and recognition to Independent Youth Works Project Dublin, which has 20 projects across the city, including the SWAN Youth Service, Cabra for Youth and Rutland Youth Service. They came together last year with one simple modest ask: sustained structural funding rather than the piecemeal grant system it is forced to survive on year after year. There is also the Bradóg Youth Service, which is currently paying €70,000 a year for its building and is struggling to stay open because of it.”
“I thank the Minister of State for being here to discuss what is frankly a crisis in the way the State approaches youth work in the north inner city. Over the past few weeks we have all seen the headlines on the spate of crimes in the area. I am not going to sensationalise what is happening. Instead, I want to force this Government to acknowledge that these youth people, some of them not even out of their teenage years, are being pulled into drug-running and dealing because we have failed them long before members of An Garda Síochána even met them on scooters. I cannot overstate this. Youth work is crime prevention. I wish to speak to the Minister of State about youth work, specifically in the north inner city. It is, to some degree, underfunded.”
“We should massively expand refuge spaces, guarantee early intervention for vulnerable young people, invest properly in probation and build a humane migration system that is rooted in solidarity with and acknowledgement of the struggle that many people have had. Until then, these Estimates remain what they are today, tables of numbers that speak volumes about a Government that knows the cost of everything and, clearly, the value of nothing.”