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Crime
( 3 items )
"Tougher sentences, new legislation, more detention facilities are
irrelevant – these kids are screaming at us: “WE DON’T CARE”. And
we’re not listening. The louder they shout, the less we seem to
hear. “We don’t care if we go to jail, we don’t care if we get
injured or killed, we don’t care about you or your cars or your
society, WE JUST DON’T CARE.”"
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Disadvantaged
( 4 items )
"They walk alone, carrying their suffering inside them, painful experiences of the present piled up on top of painful memories of the past and a future that is just too painful to contemplate. Although surrounded by people rushing here and there, they remain invisible. And that is the greatest pain of all – the pain of knowing that nobody notices, nobody seems to care."
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Drugs
( 6 items )
"Many of the young people I work with take drugs to forget the memories of their childhood, memories of abuse, violence or extreme neglect, and to suppress the feelings that are associated with those memories. One young girl expressed it very poetically, before she died of a drug overdose: “Wouldn't it be wonderful,” she said, “if you could run so fast that your memories couldn't catch up.”"
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Education
( 4 items )
"The longer you stay within the educational system, the worse you feel about yourself. At the bottom, the educational system makes you feel a failure. You are not going to make it to Third Level, so why try and fail. You cannot compete against those whose parents are pushing them, paying for grind schools, giving them out-of-school educational opportunities which you can never have. ... So why stay and fail?"
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Gardaí
( 6 items )
"Most young people will not make a complaint to the Garda Complaints Board. There are two reasons for this: first, they believe that to complain will only bring more harassment and the possibility of an even worse hiding; Secondly, they do not believe that the Garda Complaints Board can arrive at the truth. "
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Government Accountability
( 11 items )
"The only problem is that the Gardaí refuse to vet staff in residential homes run by voluntary bodies. They say that they do not have the resources to enable them to do so. Such homes are in the impossible position that one Government body, the Health Board, obliges them to get vetting for staff from another Government Body, the Gardaí, who refuses to do so."
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Homelessness
( 6 items )
"Homeless young people are amongst the most deprived, vulnerable and needy people in our country. You might think that working with them is all about giving, giving accommodation, clothes, money, food, support, advice – we, who have received so much in our own lives, giving to those who have received so much less. But in reality, I have received so much from them over all these years. The giving and receiving is two-way."
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Housing
( 3 items )
"We already regulate the prices of some commodities such as energy and telecommunications, we interfere in the markets in many other areas, most notably agriculture. We could have controlled the market forces which have set the price of houses but we chose not to. "
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Inequality
( 3 items )
"The resources have been made available to give everyone free Third-level education, regardless of their means. Resources have not been made available to renovate some primary schools which are “filthy, rat-infested, unsanitary, dilapidated”, including some 40 schools which are “seriously sub-standard”. All children, including the poor, attend primary schools; third-level education is still heavily biased towards the better off in society."
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International
( 2 items )
"I still want to take revenge because I am separated from my family. I want to give them (the Government soldiers) the same suffering that I have had. One day, if I get the chance, I will do something for all the people sharing the same suffering. If I hadn't been taken by the soldiers, I'd be living with my parents,happily, warmly. I'd be educated. It's what I want." (A young Burmese soldier, now 17)
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The Values of Modern Ireland
( 11 items )
"Most of us enjoy a substantially greater income and increased opportunities compared to ten years ago. But, like myself, we cannot avoid noticing the increased violence and aggression that exists today, in all social classes, from gangland crime to street fights; we are all aware of the increased problem of drink and binge drinking, among all social classes, and not just by the young; many people suggest that we have become a more selfish and less caring society. "
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Poverty
( 4 items )
"It is incredible – but true – that in this 21st Century, in this second wealthiest country in the world, some people have to rob to survive. Rob or starve to death is the choice they have – the same choice that some had in Victorian Britain. They have no money to feed themselves, no money to replace torn clothes, no bus fares. "
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Prisons
( 9 items )
"Joe went into prison, a non-smoker, non-drinker. Joe came out of prison a heroin addict. He was not just sentenced to eighteen months in prison: he was sentenced to a possible lifelong drug addiction. In addition, he had to share needles to inject while in prison and he contacted HIV. He went into prison with one addiction, he came out with two addictions and a serious life-threatening illness."
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Theological Reflections
( 21 items )
"If we could understand God, then we would possess God, we would have captured God and fenced God in, for ourselves. But God cannot be possessed, God can not be fenced in – certainly not by our human concepts. Most religious intolerance, most religious arguing and squabbling and most religious fundamentalism comes from the belief that we have understood God, that we have ring-fenced God, and that everyone else outside that fence is wrong."
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