Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 February 2026
741. Deputy Carol Nolan asked the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration the impact of the Greentown Programme extension on disrupting child criminal networks; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14138/26]
View answerThe Government’s focus on youth diversion and interventions is a keystone in the Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027. The strategy emphasises early intervention, prevention, family support and community engagement. It is aimed at promoting positive behavioural change and targeting this behaviour so that we can break the cycle of offending by young people.
When young people come to the attention of An Garda Síochána, the Garda National Youth Diversion Bureau will refer those suitable to Youth Diversion Projects (YDPs) who will then engage with vulnerable young people presenting with complex backgrounds.
The Department also fund specialised Youth Justice Projects catering to Harder-to-Reach, serious and prolific young offenders.
One of these is the Greentown Programme, established in 2020, which aims to disrupt the grooming of children into network-related criminal activity by adults and provides children with meaningful and practical routes out of these networks.
The Greentown Programme is made up of four strands – an intensive family programme to help with parenting and general family functioning, providing young people with pro-social opportunities, supporting communities to withstand gang and network influences, and targeting groomers and disrupting their networks.
The first Greentown Programme progress report from 2023 found that there have been notable improvements in reducing the influence of criminal networks in the trial site communities, including that children and families are better enabled to withstand the powerful attraction of network membership and to make pro-social choices.
The Greentown Programme has been in place in two trial sites and was extended for a further three years in 2023. Each trial site has an annual budget of over €600,000 and the intervention is managed by a qualified community based organisation with Department funding.
The specified goals for the programme are:
• To reduce the influence of criminal networks on children at risk of involvement
• To improve the likelihood of extrication and pro-social outcomes for children who are already involved in criminal networks.
Support is provided from An Garda Síochána and expert youth justice services specialising in family support and engaging with hard-to-reach young people. Individuals who are considered Harder-to-Reach are engaged in prolific serious offending and may also be engaging in network-related criminal activity.
The extension of the programme has reduced the influence of criminal networks on children at risk of involvement in crime and improved the likelihood of pro-social outcomes for children who are already involved in criminal networks and learnings from this Programme will be disseminated across the YDP network in the future.
