Carl O'Brien has reported from the Children's Court in Dublin and other urban centres in The Irish Times over the past month. His work has made depressing reading. Time after time parents have cried out for help.
Children in need of psychiatric care, of sheltered accommodation, of assistance with behavioural problems, have come before the courts, almost invariably accompanied by distraught family members, only to find judges at a loss as to what to do with them and where to send them.
One of the solicitors working with these children says that by the time they reach a courtroom, their anti-social behaviour has often become entrenched. According to another expert, it is too late at that stage to do anything positive or constructive.
The Minister of State for Children, Mr Brian Lenihan, points out that the 2001 Children Act provides a new framework for early intervention. But, as those working in the area have said repeatedly, the sections of the legislation that require investment in resources await implementation. Locally-based projects, which have proved to have an impact on the lives of children at risk, constitute isolated experiments rather than being part of an integrated system of social support.
It has become routine to cite lack of money as the reason for not adequately and quickly resourcing such measures. Yet insufficient funding rarely seems to be an insurmountable problem when it comes to criminal justice responses, in the form of extra prison places, to the crime that inevitably flows out of such deprivation.
This reflects a lack of coherent thought at government level over many decades. Dozens of international studies have shown the capacity of early intervention to reduce offending behaviour among young people. We also know the astronomical cost of detaining both young offenders and adults. Yet little connection seems to be made at official level between these two facts.
Speaking to The Irish Times recently about the criminal justice system, the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said it was difficult to get different government departments to co-operate in dealing with problems. That is undoubtedly so, but it is not impossible as demonstrated by the official response to the spiralling cost of insurance. Nor are Cabinet sub-committees unknown.
It is high time that the State responded to children at risk by mobilising all the resources available to it in a co-ordinated manner. By doing so, it can reduce the flow of young offenders into lives of crime. The human, social and financial costs of not doing so are a blot on society. They must be addressed by the authorities.