Patricia Stephenson
Labour Panel · Social Democrats · Ireland
“A number of us on this side of the House have concerns around what this is opening us up to. We are concerned that we do not have the correct protections and safeguards in place to ensure that the supply will be State-owned and State-led because it is not included in the definitions in the legislation.”
“The world is literally on fire in some places. We have a forest fire in Ireland for the first time in years perhaps. I know we sometimes have them in the Mourne Mountains in the North. This is cause for concern, not just for future generations but for us today.”
“I thank the Minister for coming in. This is a really positive step. I am delighted she is pushing it forward. By and large, the oral contraceptive is incredibly safe. A lot of well-studied medicines are available. Over-the-counter oral contraception has been recommended by the WHO since 2019.”
“I move amendment No. 1: In page 7, between lines 22 and 23, to insert the following: “ “emergency” means a situation where the State is experiencing a significant and protracted physical disruption of gas supply, or other catastrophic deterioration of the supply situation, and where— (a) all relevant market-based measures have been fully…”
“The Department has stated this facility "will provide the resilience required to support our energy transition" and that "the reserve will only be used in genuine emergencies", yet there is no definition in this Bill of what the Government means by an emergency and when that would apply.”
“We also have to be mindful of the burden it will place on pharmacists without the correct resourcing for pharmacies to deliver the scheme to safeguard against them withdrawing from this or any future scheme simply because they feel they do not have the resources to deliver it in a timely manner.”
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“Last week, The Ditch reported that an Irish academic had a connection to a lobbyist group for the defence industry. The lobbying group in question, The Irish Defence and Security Association, represents international arms manufacturers, including Lockheed Martin, Saab and KNDS. It regularly appears in the lobbying register meeting with the Department of Defence, including most recently last December. While the academic is involved in this lobbying group, that individual also appears regularly in the media advocating for ending our neutrality. However, this connection to the lobbying group is rarely mentioned as part of the person's media contributions. As many people in this room will know, I disagree with the stance on neutrality, but it is legitimate to put forward the argument that we should end our neutrality.”
“We need to put money into vital services before we go off spending money on other things – military jets, for example. We need streamlined processes to open new classes, investment in teachers and SNA recruitment. Last year, the then Minister, Deputy Foley, said there was not a problem with staffing in schools. That does not reflect the reality on the ground that we hear about when we speak to parents and families. In addition, we need to see expanded therapeutic support in schools, speech therapy, occupational therapy and psychological support. It should be normal practice to have all these supports built into the education system, no matter the size of a school or where it is. No child should be waiting months or, appallingly, years for the help they need. A society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable.”
“We are not getting comprehensive solutions; rather, we are getting cobbled-together, last-minute responses, leading to much undue stress for families. We are also seeing, as a result of this, what is very much a postcode lottery whereby children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are often the hardest hit. As Senator Clonan has said time and again in this Chamber, we need a rights-based approach to education and disability whereby every child gets the support he or she needs, without exception. That should be the norm. Expanding school places in classes is essential but so is long-term planning. The Education (Inclusion of Persons) Bill 2023 and the Education (Amendment) Bill 2024 must be enacted to ensure no child is left behind. Schools need proper funding.”
“I am sharing time. I thank Sinn Féin for raising this issue in the Chamber today. We all know that no child should be denied their fundamental right to education, but across Ireland we see children with additional needs who are left without school places and we are forcing families into an endless battle with the system. It is not just a failure; it is a complete disgrace. All of us in this room, regardless of political background, where we come from or where we are sitting, have had heartbreaking conversations with parents who are struggling to find school places for their children, and we feel desperate that we cannot offer any solution. The plethora of stories we hear very much speak for themselves. Families requiring special educational support are being neglected. This is not new; it has been going on for years.”
“A plebiscite is the only democratic path forward in keeping with our tradition of public mandates on major policy shifts, just as we saw with the Lisbon and Nice treaties. I know the Tánaiste has committed to come to this Chamber over the next few weeks to specifically discuss the issue of Gaza. I am delighted to hear that, but I would welcome an additional debate on this matter. This is a huge change in our foreign policy agenda since the foundation of the State. It is really important, therefore, that we have a timely and substantial debate on this issue.”
“The triple lock is very much a practical expression of this commitment, ensuring Ireland participates in missions with broad international legitimacy and that it is not simply driven by whoever holds power at any given time. Removing the triple lock is the first step, I believe and we in the Social Democrats believe, in the erosion of our neutrality. It is a mechanism which prevents mission creep into other conflicts. I recognise there is a difference of opinion on this and we have seen that in the media and from Government statements. Given the vast difference in opinion, the most fundamental and important way to approach this is through a direct vote in the form of a plebiscite. If the Government believes this change is necessary, let it make its case to the people.”
“Tomorrow my party colleagues in the Lower Chamber will bring forward a Private Members' motion that calls for a people's vote on the retention of the triple lock, which we believe is fundamental to protecting Ireland's neutrality. The triple lock is a system that has long ensured any deployment of Irish Defence Forces overseas is based on multilateralism and peacekeeping. We in the Social Democrats believe it is only right to demand a plebiscite because this decision, one which is a major shift in our foreign policy, is a decision which belongs to the people and not just the Government of the day. Our commitment to neutrality has long been a cornerstone of Irish foreign policy. It has been reinforced through our ratification of Nice and Lisbon treaties.”
“Meta and X have now pulled back their expressions around online safety commitments. Regulatory restrictions are first and foremost for safety. That is the key. It is not all of it but it is a critical part of addressing the recommender algorithms, which, as we know and recognise given that so much research has been done on them, push young men and women towards harmful content online.”
“I am delighted that the Minister of State feels this is an important issue and that it requires cross-party support, a cross-departmental response and an holistic response. I agree with the message behind that. However, I push back on the idea that the content reporting systems Coimisiún na Meán is implementing work; they do not. We have heard from civil society bodies such as Women's Aid, Safe Ireland and the National Youth Council that the work it is doing with respect to the code of conduct, code of practice and regulations is really softball. We need to do more, and that means regulating social media companies with headquarters here. We could lead on this in Europe. We cannot shy away from the reckless attitude being taken by social media companies. They are genuinely not willing to do anything.”
“I would welcome the Minister of State outlining exactly what the Department of media is doing in respect of the recommender algorithms but also, more broadly, the specific actions being taken in collaboration with the Department of Education to tackle this issue in schools.”
“It is within that context that Ireland should be leading and regulating the online space regarding preventing gender-based violence. The current legal framework we have, including the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, needs to be strengthened to have clear accountability for platforms. Right now, it is not working. Regarding how we regulate the online space, we also need to look within our education system and at what we are doing to tackle online violence in schools and education settings, with students but also with teachers and parents. This needs to be an holistic response. We cannot approach issues of this type from just one angle when we are trying to tackle them.”
“They face harassment, threats, doxing and non-consensual sharing of images. This can lead to things like psychological distress and, in some cases, self-harm, and we have had cases of suicide. The fear of online abuse silences voices and creates a chilling effect as it comes to freedom of expression. People do not want to speak out or stand up for their rights because they are concerned that online harassment could be used against them. We currently have no meaningful mechanism for an individual to get sensitive images and content taken down, with the exception of hotline.ie , which is an organisation that is doing stellar work but with incredibly limited resources. As we all know in this room, Ireland holds a unique position, hosting many of the world’s largest tech companies for their European headquarters.”
“A deeply reckless attitude is being taken by social media companies vis-à-vis the misogynistic and harmful content we are seeing online. In addition, the code of practice for video-sharing platforms does not tackle the material impacts of intimate partner abuse for anyone over 18. Indeed, we have seen some legal actions being taken by several social media platforms, arguing that they do not fit the criteria for video sharing, so the code of practice does not apply to them. There is clear evidence that sharing intimate partner images connects strongly to intimate partner abuse. Therefore, tackling online safety and the sharing of material without consent is a critical part of dealing with gender-based violence as well as domestic violence. Victims of online abuse are predominantly women, often women from marginalised backgrounds.”
“Studies have shown that long-standing exposure to this type of very misogynistic content is contributing to how boys perceive girls. It is within this context that I wanted to have a debate with the Minister for media - though I am delighted that the Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae, is here – on the issue specifically as it relates to the social media recommender algorithms, which contribute significantly to pushing boys and young men down these rabbit holes of deeply misogynistic content online. While in theory we have Coimisiún na Meán in place to regulate the online space, the reality in practice is nothing the commission is doing right now actually solves the issue and tackles the issue of the recommender algorithms.”
“I wish to speak today about gender-based violence, the prevalence of which is still shockingly high in Ireland, where we are still very much facing an epidemic of gender-based violence. How we respond to gender-based violence needs to be strengthened, but to truly address GBV, we need to look at the prevention angle. The online sphere is a major contributing factor to GBV. Young people are spending significant time online, where they are being exposed to extremely harmful forms of masculinity with influencers who promote a regressive form of masculinity that promotes sexual and gender-based violence and contributes harmful attitudes and behaviours towards women and girls, including the likes of discriminatory and hateful language.”
“They have to be more sick and more in pain before they get treatment, and that is just not the way it should be. We all know that. We all recognise that, sitting here and having this discussion. We need to see the acceptance of this Bill, its correct implementation and, as we heard from Senator Flynn, the correct resourcing that is both ring-fenced and at the right level to address this issue.”
“Not all parents have the time to get elected to the Oireachtas to advocate for their children. They do not have the capacity. They might have multiple children. They might be working several jobs. Those kids, because they do not have parents who can fight and shout for them, are falling through the gaps. When healthcare systems receive pressure from parents, and rightly so, it is the children with the quieter advocates who do not get heard. The consequences of that are often that the sickest children are left behind. We have to face the reality that these children are being neglected by the State. They are wasting away in pain because of the lack of timely treatment, as has been highlighted. Because our waiting lists are so jam-packed and long, it is the children in the most extreme state who are getting treatment.”
“As we heard, a lot of people do not need surgery as children. When they reach adulthood, they are not getting the correct care. What we are seeing here, as we have seen in many disability rights issues in Ireland, is that parents, extended family members and guardians are being forced to become advocates. The scoliosis network was founded by two mothers who had children dealing with this. That seems to be the default. We rely on voluntary advocacy networks set up by parents who are screaming at the top of their lungs for what should be a basic right. Senator Clonan’s son is incredibly lucky to have him as a parent, but not all children might have parents who have the advocacy skills and are able to take it this far, to get elected to one of the Houses.”
“As a result, they cannot get onto the waiting lists and they do not have ongoing reviews by a trained consultant so they do not receive a correct diagnosis as early as they should. That means they are not treated in a timely manner, as we already heard. That children do not have orthopaedic consultants is mind boggling in a country as developed and wealthy as Ireland. It should not be accepted as the norm. I thank the Independent Senators for highlighting the children aspect but also the adult aspect. People are ageing out of children's services and might never have received any proper service as children. They are 18 and no longer receive children's services and have extreme challenges as adults, putting their entire futures on hold. I applaud the Senators because there is a huge cohort. They are not small numbers.”
“We are talking about healthcare but it is important that we remember that this is very much a children's rights issue which was recognised by the Ombudsman for Children. As Senator Clonan explicitly pointed out in his intervention, it is a disability rights issue as well. I hope in this debate and in the eventual implementation of this Bill that there will be a framework of disability and children's rights at its core. We already heard this evening about the waiting lists. They have been going up since December and January. They are creeping up, although I recognise there is an increase in the output of surgery. Children lost their consultants so they do not have a named consultant.”
“They cannot eat, they do not have safe drinking water and they have nowhere to rest their heads at night. This is going to cause decades of intergenerational trauma in the Middle East and more broadly. We cannot accept this and we have to have a debate about what more we can actually do as a country. We need to take action. We need more than just words.”
“What do you say to your children when they ask why this is happening? Do we consider ourselves to live in an equal society? Are we all equal in this room and across this world? Are we human beings? Do we have humanity? How can we continue to see this and yet do nothing? The Irish Government has used good words but there has not been enough action. We have the occupied territories Bill but it has been at Cabinet level since 2020. There is no reason we should not be passing it. This is the bare minimum. I also support Senator Black when she spoke about the IHRA definition. We need a debate on that. We cannot accept that as fact in the Government programme. That is not the way we should be leading human rights dialogue as a country. Humanitarian aid has been blocked from hundreds of thousands of people.”
“I will speak about something that has already come from this side of the Chamber today. It relates to what we saw this week. On Monday night, when we were all out enjoying St. Patrick's Day or returning from our celebrations, we heard that Israel had broken the fragile ceasefire in Gaza. Once again, we saw images of the complete horror of these bombings on our social media and newsfeeds. We saw the carpet bombing of men, women and children. As of this morning, the Palestinian Embassy was talking about 104, but we heard earlier that 1,000 civilians have been killed. Many others have been injured and people are still trapped under rubble. I am lost for words. The horror is endless. What do we do, as an international community and as a country, when this is happening repeatedly?”
“We are deeply concerned about the continuing privatisation of services and care for older people and would like to see a public system. I will speak about the point Senator Costello - she is not in the Chamber - made on the challenges of the digitalisation we keep seeing. The digital-only provision of public services is discriminatory. While that is how many of us work and live our lives, many people in our lives, such as my mother, are blocked from accessing many things in the digital space. While I support elements of the motion, we can go further. We need to focus on structural change and delivery of these things.”
“Like ending homelessness, which was not seen in the programme for Government, older people are similarly unseen in it, which is a great disappointment for many of us. There is no specific reference to older people throughout the comprehensive section on building a healthier future, which is an omission, given today's motion. The Social Democrats have advocated for such measures as a commissioner for ageing and older populations who would ensure oversight and advocacy, which is also missing from the programme of Government, and a senior Minister for disability. To create financial stability for older people, we would also like to see a linking of the State pension to at least 34% of the average wage to ensure financial security for people who are no longer working.”
“It is putting a huge amount of financial strain on families and it is punitive. I am sure everyone spoke to carers who are struggling on the doors during the recent general election campaign. This would be a quick way of putting human rights back into the care space. More than 1 million people in Ireland report having a disability. This group is at significantly greater risk of experiencing poverty, social exclusion and unemployment and facing a whole range of different barriers around transport, housing and education. The fact is that disabled people, including older people, are fighting for basic supports they should be entitled to and that should be a human right. That is not okay in 2025. It was never okay, but the fact is we are still seeing people fight for basics. That needs to change.”
“I thank the Minister of State for coming today and thank the Fine Gael Senators for bringing forward this motion. We are talking about older people and sometimes we do so as though they are a homogenous group. However, I am sure we all know lots of older people who are living their best lives, hiking and skydiving. We need to think about them as individuals and the different supports we want, beyond thinking about older people as being helpless. I broadly support today's motion, but there are some vital considerations we need to discuss when we talk about enhancing care provision. Unpaid carers make up some 6% of the population and we still have a means test for carer's allowance. I recognise there has been a commitment to remove it within the term of this Government, but we need to see a commitment to do so this year.”
“We have women of colour, Traveller women, Roma women, trans women, queer women, and refugee and migrant women and they have intersecting barriers to getting the proper healthcare they need, including structural barriers. We need to move beyond that and recognise the barriers within our systems that stop people from getting the healthcare they deserve. We need more investment in healthcare that prioritises the intersectional needs of diverse women.”
“There were 20 promised in 2018, but no funding has been allocated for these additional beds. Women with eating disorders report their condition being dismissed by healthcare providers as stress related or as them being concerned about their physical appearance. It is not being treated as the mental condition it is. Many women are expected to endure painful medical procedures with minimal pain relief. They are told to take paracetamol for highly traumatic gynaecological procedures, and they are not given appropriate anaesthetics. This should be routinely offered. I also want to touch on some of the issues affecting women with intersecting identities.”
“However, the answer has to be about what practitioners do about that, whether it is by means of gender-sensitive training or more research into how women's symptoms are different. We have heard about endometriosis already. So many women have their symptoms completely dismissed for up to eight years, leaving them in debilitating pain. That cannot be the way we do health. Last week, I attended a presentation by Cared Ireland. I suspect some of those Members present also attended. I put on record my thanks to those who spoke and shared their harrowing experiences. Eating disorders disproportionately affect women. In 2022, a report from the HSE highlighted that most people seeking treatment were young women, particularly those in their teenage years and in their 20s. Disgracefully, as of April last year there were only three beds in Ireland.”
“I thank the Minister for coming to the House for this debate. We have already heard about medical gaslighting this afternoon. I suspect most, it not all, of the women in the Chamber can speak about experiences they have had when they have not been believed. Perhaps they have had really severe migraines and been told to try yoga or drink herbal tea. I once turned up in such severe pain to see a doctor that I was vomiting. I was given diazepam for stress. It turned out I had appendicitis. From what I have heard from colleagues today, this is a really common issue. It is so normal that women have this experience. The Minister said that women's symptoms are different.”
“I implore, from this point onwards, that Ireland continues and really pushes the EU and our allies to reinforce the importance of this aid. It is not like a little additional extra. We are undermining global stability and that will impact us at home. This is not happening in a vacuum away from us. It is about global stability and global peace, which will impact us in Ireland and that is why it is so fundamental.”
“I thank the Minister of State. I appreciate his commitment to human rights and humanitarian aid, and I know it has always been on the Irish Government's agenda. However, it is so important that we really use the power that we have with the US and in the EU to reinforce just how abhorrent what we are about to see is. It also goes to the survival of many Irish organisations that live in the psyche of the Irish people, like Concern, Goal and Trócaire. The vital work they are doing is being undermined. They are closing programmes and offices. I also want to highlight that the US aid cuts, which it has been doing over the last few years, are really a slap in the face to the UN commitments we have been making and represent an undermining of the commitments that the global north has been making to the global south. It is really problematic.”
“Will he make sure it is on the Taoiseach’s agenda next week when he is visiting the US for St Patrick's Day, and critically when he is visiting Washington to really push back on the Trump administration and what it has done within this context? Many countries have crippled spending, and they have these enormous debt servicing obligations as well. How can we look into tax justice as a way to develop better responses for countries in their resiliency and humanitarian programming?”
“The fact that this money is now stopped means we are going to see a huge increase in deaths. Ireland has a proud history of humanitarian work. I have worked on Irish Aid projects and I have seen the fantastic work we do abroad. I am deeply disappointed that the Irish Government's commitment to ODA was not in the programme for Government. It has been watered down. This included removing the deadline of 2030 to reach our ODA obligation of 0.7%. Rather than progressing, we are stagnating in relation to our ODA commitments. I am asking the Minister of State what his plan is. What are we going to do in the EU to scale up funding as a bloc? Has he talked with his EU counterparts on this issue? What are we doing in terms of our diplomatic links in the humanitarian sector? Is it going to be on his agenda when he is visiting Tanzania and Kenya?”
“We will see an increase in things like maternal mortality, in the number of girls being forced into early marriage and in the number of women dying from childbirth. We are going to see an increase in things like child labour, because desperate families are going to be forcing their kids to work because they are struggling just to put food on the table and are living in starvation conditions. The famine early warning system has been shut down as a consequence of these cuts, which has undermined efforts to pre-empt and act early on food crises. It is estimated that €1 spent on early action saves €7 on humanitarian response, and that is why this is so incredibly important. We are going to see a huge increase in deaths from HIV and AIDS. Two thirds of people globally are treated for AIDS with US funding.”
“The leave no one behind and the furthest behind first approach is one of the major outcome areas for Irish Aid. I am asking the Minister of State what he is going to do within this context to ensure that no one is going to be left behind when we are about to see colossal and possibly irreparable harm as a consequence of these cuts. I spent a long time living in east Africa, and I know first hand how critical this funding is. I know what is going to happen without it. I have seen the impacts of famine on families and communities in South Sudan and Somalia. I am anticipating that the images we are going to see on our televisions and our mobile phones are going to be horrific. Over a 90-day period estimates suggest that 11.7 million women and girls will be denied essential reproductive healthcare.”
“Likewise, last week we saw that in the UK where Keir Starmer’s Government made a serious cut to ODA. We are seeing a huge disruption to the work of humanitarian development and peace-building agencies, which is going to cost lives. It is going to increase the vulnerability of the most at-risk people in the world. This drastic funding withdrawal is going to threaten peace and stability and is potentially going to create a political vacuum, which leaves space for extremism and increased influence of non-human rights focused or compliant countries, and seriously undermine the already much-delayed progress we have been attempting to make towards the achievement of our sustainable development goals. Linked to that is our climate goals. Therefore, the implications of this are going to have a greater impact on climate change.”
“I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, for coming to the Chamber. I am delighted to see him because it is fantastic to have this dialogue with the responsible Minister. I have asked to talk about overseas development assistance, an issue I know is close to the Minister of State’s heart. The international development sector, which has been absolutely decimated by the freeze placed on USAID projects by the Trump administration, stands at a really critical moment in Ireland and globally. At the end of February, approximately $60 billion of funding has been cut overnight. At the same time, many states in Europe, including France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Finland, to name just a few, have already, or are in the process of, reducing their ODA.”
“We need to support them to develop resiliency and local climate change adaption projects. Senator Brady mentioned the ESB. That was an important point. We should not be pushing the fixing of this onto consumers. That is not a credible option or solution.”
“We have heard from others that weather events happen all the time but we are having more of them. Communities across Ireland are being affected but rural communities are disproportionately affected. Rural communities are being left behind amid a range of issues they are facing: power cuts lasting weeks; impassable roads; elderly residents; and people who are sick and not getting the support they need. In my area on the Carlow-Kilkenny border, the Defence Forces were brought up for a resident during the snow storm. We need to be proactive rather than reactive. I feel like we are taking a reactive approach all of the time to these incidents. We have heard about fixing telecommunication lines. We need to sort out our farmers, who are bearing the brunt and on the coalface of climate change.”
“I thank the Minister of State for attending. We have heard the phrases "once in a lifetime storm" and "unprecedented extreme weather event" so many times in recent years. We know these are not isolated incidents. For children growing up today, this is just the norm and their new reality. What was once considered rare is now a frequent weather event. All of us in this room acknowledge that climate change is driving that. We have to take that into account when planning and building resiliency in communities. For children and young people growing up today, there is a sense of fear for the future. There is worry and a sense of hopelessness. We need to take action to redress that and build resiliency. The warming planet means more unpredictable weather patterns. This is not just bad luck; it is a direct consequence of climate change.”
“We see countries that are basically spending the majority of their tax generated income on debt financing, which is a vicious cycle where they cannot spend their own funding and money on projects involving women’s equality, climate change adaptation or building resilience in their communities. Will the Minister of State for international development, Deputy Richmond, come to the Chamber for a debate on Ireland’s position on supporting the UN framework convention on sovereign debt to see our position on debt financing as a country as well as global tax justice?”
“In the context of women’s equality, as a consequence of these aid cuts, we will see an increase in early and child marriages, school drop-outs and fewer women being educated across the world. Equally, we will see a major change in how we address climate change and in resilience projects in some of the countries living with the most extreme impacts of climate change. Ireland has always taken a proud stance on human rights, development and humanitarian aid. While we have been seen globally as leaders in this space, there is more we can do, particularly in the area of debt financing.”
“I will speak today to overseas development assistance, ODA. In recent weeks, in the early days of the Trump Administration, we have seen a cutting of USAID funding by approximately 50%, which has consisted of a complete cutting of staff overnight and a complete embargo on the implementation of humanitarian projects across the world. This week in the UK, Keir Starmer has brought the ODA of the UK Government down from 0.5% to 0.3%, which, according to BBC reports, will actually be 0.15% in practice because a lot of that funding will be used domestically. I want to touch on what this means for people living in poverty across the world. We will have instances of extreme hunger, famine and increased deaths.”
“I believe that in order to respond to crime effectively, we need to focus on preventing it through investment and championing local initiatives, such as the ones I mentioned in Carlow and Kilkenny.”
“We have heard about earlier interventions around gender-based violence. In response, the Garda has been asking for powers to allow for the removal from the home of perpetrators of domestic violence in instances where the threshold for arrest is not met. That was on the agenda in the term of the previous Government and I think it is something we should continue to explore. Community safety is not just about policing. That is an element of it, but it is not the sole factor. It is about building a fairer society in which everyone has the right to feel safe. As Senator Ryan mentioned eloquently, we need a society where everyone has the right not to live in fear.”
“As we have already heard, things such as well-lit street areas, maintained parks, safe after-school programmes and the regeneration of communities, as Senators Duffy and Cosgrove spoke about, all contribute. These initiatives obviously come at a cost, but it is about an investment in safer and stronger communities. That is a cost I think we can all agree is worthwhile. In my own area of Carlow and Kilkenny, we have seen the power of local solution in action. The Kilkenny community policing initiative has made strides in strengthening relationships between the Garda and residents, and ensuring that policing is responding to local concerns. In Carlow, we have St. Francis Farm, which is a community-based addiction recovery programme that recognises substance abuse is a social issue, not a criminal one. That is an important point.”
“We must invest in things such as education. Senator Cosgrove spoke about the importance of youth services and employment initiatives that steer people away from crime before they enter the justice system. In many cases, once people are in the justice system it is difficult for them to leave it. Research has shown that young people can be vulnerable to things such as peer pressure, socioeconomic factors and childhood trauma, which is a significantly contributing factor to their participation in crime. Addressing these challenges and needs through youth diversion programmes is key. The approach can include community centres, mentorship programmes and affordable housing projects, which are proven ways to reduce crime by fostering stability, inclusion and social cohesion.”
“We should be focusing on deterrents and working with communities rather than taking a punitive approach. We should be developing a restorative justice programme where victims and community representatives have the chance to meet offenders so there is an opportunity to repair the harm done in the medium and long terms. As we have heard, however, response alone is not enough. We also need to address the root causes of crime. The root causes to any social issue are important to address if we wish to reduce it. Those causes include things such as addiction, poverty and social exclusion. We need greater co-operation between the Garda, social services and local communities, and must ensure we take an holistic approach that prioritises rehabilitation over punishment, where possible. Preventing crime starts with creating opportunities.”