Shortall: Punish parents for child’s antisocial behaviour

Parents should be held accountable by the courts for their child’s antisocial behaviour, a Government minister has said.

Róisín Shortall, minister of state at the Department of Health, said these parents should be hit with court supervision orders and court fines.

She said these provisions were on the statute books, via the Children Act 2001, and were available to the courts, but said judges were not using them.

Ms Shortall told a conference that antisocial behaviour “probably tops the list of issues of concern” for the constituents of most public representatives.

“One of the areas I’m concerned about is the fact that we have legislation on the statute books from the early 2000s, which provides for the use of various different orders — parental orders, requiring parents to take specific actions, providing for curfews, providing for parents to be sent on training courses — but a lot of those orders are not being used.”

Speaking at a conference organised by the Dublin Lord Mayor’s commission on antisocial behaviour, Ms Shortall said: “The courts should be using provisions for fines for parents for damage done to property, public or private, by their child.”

Ms Shortall said an “awful lot” of antisocial behaviour is “fuelled by alcohol and drug misuse”.

She said the country could no longer “bury its head in the sand” regarding the harm alcohol caused to communities.

She said she would take her proposals for an alcohol strategy to the Cabinet in the next two months.

Dr Graham Cannon, senior clinical psychologist with the HSE, said research estimated 3%-5% of children were involved in chronic antisocial behaviour.

He said there was a lot of evidence to show that early intervention in families was beneficial and cost effective.