Mr. Pat Bergin:

I was appointed by the board of management as the director of Oberstown Children Detention Campus in June 2016. Prior to that, I had operated as campus manager since December 2013. Due to legislation enacted in June 2016, the campus, as it currently exists, has only come into effect. Prior to that, there were three detention schools on the Oberstown site, Oberstown Boys, Oberstown Girls and Trinity House, which were run as three separate entities. They had different structures, focus on young people and policies. A significant change process has been under way since 2011 which has culminated in the development of the Oberstown detention school which is one entity.

In January 2014, I met two members of staff on the campus who had known each other before. One had worked in one school; the other in another school. For 12 years, they came in and went out the front gate to work but did not know each other. This gives the context of the challenges experienced in Oberstown over the past several years. Today, those two individuals have different roles but work side by side, part and parcel of the integrated schools.

In December 2013, the number of staff employed on the campus was 198; now 261 are employed. A €56 million project has seen the development of an entire new facility. The idea was to expand the number of young people on the campus. Originally, there were 24 young people in Oberstown and 16 in Trinity House when I arrived. The new campus has a 90-bed capacity. However, the ability to provide 90 places for young people depends on the number of staff available, as well as routine and structure. The campus now has a licence for 48 boys and six girls, compared to 40 in March 2015. We have taken 17 year olds on remand. Over the past several years, there has been a focus on ensuring young people did not go to prison. In 2012, the focus was to first remove 16 year olds from St. Patrick's Institution. This has been achieved. There were challenges in taking in this cohort on the campus but they are part and parcel of the group we now cater for in Oberstown. The next phase was to take the 17 to 18 year old cohort which was divided into two strategies. The first was to take the young people on remand which was completed last year.

We are still in the process of finalising taking young people on committal. That completes the agenda for removing young people from adult prison. That is important. That was the focus of my task when I took on the role some years ago, to address the merger and expansion, to modernise the campus and bring it in line with best practice from a care perspective. There have been multiple challenges. We have met many of those and have much more to do. We have industrial relations challenges and challenges in respect of integration policies. These are all part and parcel of a change process that is under way.

We have implemented an ethos on care, education, health and well-being, offending behaviour and planning for discharge of young people, CEHOP. Part of our challenge was to bring together the ethos of different schools. There was a perception at Trinity House that it dealt with high-risk young people from a secure perspective. Oberstown Boys was seen as a relationship model where there was not a high fence and children absconded and left the buildings more regularly and there was Oberstown Girls. We have had to bring together those three schools, with three focuses and three different teams to create a common approach. That has its own challenges with people hanging on to the way they used to do business. We are moving on that, we have a framework, we are doing training with staff but the key challenge is to balance the issue of how to care for young people in a detention facility while ensuring they stay within the facility and receive the appropriate level of care. These are the ongoing challenges on the campus. I will hold it there and I am happy to take any questions people may have.