Update: Accommodation for Juvenile Offenders – Children and Youth Affairs 25th September, 2014

QUESTION NO:  158
DÁIL QUESTION addressed to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs (Dr. James Reilly)
by Deputy Bernard J. Durkan
for WRITTEN ANSWER on 25/09/2014 

 *  To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the extent to which adequate accommodation remains available or is likely to become available in respect of juvenile offenders with particular reference to future and current needs; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

                                                                                        Bernard J. Durkan T.D.

REPLY.
The 3 children detention schools, all located at Oberstown, Lusk, Co. Dublin, currently provide a total of 46 detention places for young people ordered to be remanded or committed by the courts in relation to criminal matters.  These comprise 6 places for girls up to the age of 18 on admission and 40 places for boys up to the age of 17 on admission. 

Boys aged 17 on being ordered to be detained are currently accommodated by the Irish Prison Service.  This practice will cease, meeting the commitment in the Programme for Government to end the practice of detaining children in adult prison facilities, when new children detention facilities currently being constructed on the Oberstown campus become available before the end of this year.   Construction commenced on site on the Oberstown campus in September 2013 and the new facilities will increase the capacity on the campus to provide sufficient accommodation for all children under 18 years of age ordered to be detained by the courts in relation to criminal matters . 

In the interim, there is ongoing contact with the Courts, Probation and An Garda Síochána regarding the availability of places in the children detention schools and, pending introduction of the expanded facilities, the existing facilities at the Oberstown campus will continue to be available to the Courts.