Lack of 24-hour social work service hampering efforts

The lack of a 24-hour social work service is hampering attempts to help marginalised youth, an Oireachtas committee has been told.

The joint Committee on Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs also heard that too many professionals in the youth work area have nine-to-five jobs and are not available at night, when young people are more likely to be in trouble.

The claims were made during a presentation of the five-year plan, Breaking Through, a 32-county support network for practitioners working with "young people at risk".

Fine Gael TD Jimmy Deenihan praised the group's work, but said practitioners were "not getting through" to those in need, partly because most of them went off duty at 5 or 6pm.

"Young people are at their most vulnerable between 10pm and 2am, but nobody's working then," he said.

The slack was taken up by unpaid volunteers, often working in isolation, without support or funding.

Vice-chairman of Breaking Through Paul Flynn acknowledged that Ireland was, to his knowledge, "the only country in Europe without a 24-hour social work service". He also agreed that many housing estates where the network was active were "a nightmare" from 10pm until 4am, and that attempts to help the vulnerable were limited by a shortage of staff and resources.

Breaking Through defines young people at risk as those "whose behaviour or life circumstances seriously jeopardise their wellbeing and alienate them from their families, education, training and the community".

It aims to co-ordinate the work of 300-400 social workers, gardaí, teachers, community volunteers and others who strive to identify and help young people in need.