Call for closer co-operation to tackle social problems

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS, State agencies and health services need to work much more closely together to help tackle social problems that can result in young people getting involved in criminal behaviour, former Dublin city manager John Fitzgerald said yesterday.

Speaking at the Irish Youth Justice Service conference in Co Cavan, Mr Fitzgerald said there were too many agencies operating independently without getting satisfactory results.

Mr Fitzgerald, who is involved in the regeneration of deprived areas of Limerick city, said: "The physical regeneration is the easy bit. We've done that in Dublin, the UK and Europe. Social regeneration is much more difficult. It requires a huge amount of co-operation between various agencies, working together in way they may never have done before."

He said the regeneration agencies in Limerick, recently established by the Government, were examining new ways of getting the community, non-governmental organisations and State services to plan and develop services together.

Mr Fitzgerald added that involvement with families at risk was crucial in helping to tackle neglect and deprivation.

"You still see children malnourished and falling out of the education system at an early age. We are not doing them any favours by just leaving them and their families without support. If we have to provide a one-to-one support, and get in there at 9am to ensure the children are fed and sent off to school, we need to do it. The problem is the system isn't structured to do that," he said.

In particular, he said there was a huge scope for neighbourhoods to play a major role in regeneration by building up the capacity of community centres to help provide services in their own locality.

Also speaking at the conference yesterday, Minister for Children Brendan Smith said that a new three-year youth justice strategy, to be published shortly, aims to develop a much more co-ordinated approach among agencies working in the youth justice sector.

The new strategy includes goals and targets set to help measure progress and to assess and identify key tasks for Government departments and agencies.

They include plans to reduce the number of children in detention by diverting young people from offending behaviour and promoting a greater use of community sanctions and alternatives to custody.

These sanctions include community service, intensive supervision, training and mentoring programmes.

"The great advantage of this system is that it allows a child to stay in their school and community while working to reform behaviour, rather than taking them away from valuable social supports," Mr Smith said.