A Galway TD is demanding the Minister for Children, Katherine Zappone to outline what measures have been put in place to ensure the “huge failures” to act on youth crimes, “will never occur again”.
Fianna Fáil spokesperson on children and youth affairs, Anne Rabbitte, was speaking following a report published by An Garda Síochána, which revealed there were close to 8,000 youth crimes which were never progressed or prosecuted.
According to the Galway East TD, the report show a number of these cases involved serious offences, and also that 57 of the child offenders referred to in this report have since died.
“It is simply horrendous to think a person could make a report of a serious crime to An Garda Síochána and that would not be acted on”, said Dep Rabbitte. “This is unfair to the victims of these crimes, but it also affected these young offenders, who failed to receive the appropriate interventions from the justice system and the broader State. It is possible that proper intervention could have averted this.”
Dep Rabbitte is calling on Minister Zappone “to account for this massive failing” and explain what her department “will be doing to ensure that such an issue does not recur”.
