620. Deputy Thomas Pringle asked the Minister for Justice the number of persons that have been convicted for grooming children into the drug trade; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5078/22] 

Helen McEntee, Minister for Justice: Diverting young people away from getting involved in criminal activity is a key priority for the Government and the exploitation of young people and children is a particular concern. 

As the Deputy will be aware, while an adult may be prosecuted for a crime which has been committed by a child who has been incited to do so by the adult, there is currently no mechanism in law for explicitly recognising the damage done to the child. 

The Programme for Government commits to developing a law which would take account of this and penalise adults for the exploitation and harm done to the child in such cases. 

I can inform the Deputy that officials in my Department are already working to develop legislation in this regard. The General Scheme of the Criminal Justice (Exploitation of Children in the Commission of Offences) Bill was published in January 2021. The Bill underwent pre-legislative scrutiny in November 2021 and is currently being drafted by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. 

It should be noted that this is a complex area as, in many cases, the adult in question is known to the child and may in some cases even be a family member, causing potential issues with regard to witness testimony. 

As the Deputy may be aware, I published the new Youth Justice Strategy 2021-27 in April 2021 with Minister of State James Browne TD. This Strategy includes a commitment to develop the work of the Garda Youth Diversion Projects (GYDPs) to include targeted work with ‘harder-to-reach’ young people. This includes young people heavily involved in crime and anti-social behaviour, for whom there are little supports and interventions available in practice, unless they are before the courts, in which case they may be under the supervision of the Probation Service. The Strategy also prioritises early intervention work, including with younger children who are assessed as being at serious risk. Both of these cohorts may include children at risk of recruitment by crime gangs. 

The development of this work within the GYDP network will be supported by the Research Evidence into Policy, Programmes and Practice (REPPP) project at the School of Law in the University of Limerick (UL). The REPPP has led on the Greentown Project, which studied the influence of criminal networks on children in Ireland and a report was published in December 2016. The REPPP project is a strategic research partnership between UL and the Department of Justice. 

The Greentown Report identifies crime networks as a separate and plausible risk factor underlying criminal offending by certain children. It outlines how the influence of criminal networks increases the level of offending by a small number of children and entraps them in offending situations. 

The Greentown Report recommended the design of a programme to include interventions with children and their families to help them withstand the influence of criminal networks. The REPPP project team implemented a bespoke design process to produce a model for an Irish evidence-informed intervention programme. The Greentown programme has been designed with the input of leading international expertise on crime and criminal networks, together with Irish scientific, policy and practice expertise in child protection and welfare, drugs and community development. 

The Greentown programme, developed by the REPPP, commenced in two locations in 2020 and will run for three years. The learning from these trial sites will then be incorporated into mainstream GYDP practice. This specially designed intervention programme was developed with international expert advice, to tackle coercive control of children by criminal groups which entraps them in offending situations. Funds are already available for the initial trial sites from the Dormant Accounts Funds, with a total of €4.2m allocated over three years. 

The implementation of the trial sites of the Greentown programme is part of the Strategic Objectives of the Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027. This implementation process began with the establishment of the Governance and Strategy Group, and the Youth Justice Oversight Group. Both groups are chaired by my Department, which will provide oversight arrangements for Youth Justice Initiatives, including the Greentown pilots, to ensure that there is a cohesive response in practice to the needs of particular cohorts of children and particular communities.