Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Oberstown is located in a rural area near Lusk in north County Dublin. The town has a population of 10,000. It is a large town by the Chairman's standards. It is approximately 10 km north of Swords, so it is perhaps 12 km or 13 km north of Dublin Airport. It is a very rural location, although it is very well served by a former national road that would get one there pretty quickly.

One of the issues I experienced when I went to Oberstown was that there was a requirement to rethink the entire building because none of the doors was of the same size. The frames were all of different sizes. The locks were all different. It was the most bizarre experience. I had served on the justice committee for six years and visited prisons as a member of that committee. I appreciate Oberstown is not a prison but if a judge sends an individual to Oberstown and he or she does not want to go there, the door needs to be locked. Therefore, it seems pretty logical that the Prison Service should be talked to about how to proceed. Clearly, that did not happen and the Department then had to cough up to retrofit and make uniform the doors, locks and many other things. To my shock and horror, I was passing a door on a secure corridor and I looked outside to discover a long, thick chunk of wood jammed between a wall and a door.

That was the security. It has been repaired since but the point is that this basic error of judgement was made in the plan, which takes me back to the expenditure. There was an underspend on the overall project, which I would like Dr. Lynch to explain.

On the uniformity of locks and doors and the security for the personnel working in Oberstown Children Detention Campus, which should be of paramount importance to all of us, what improvements will be made in the long term?