Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 13 June 2019
Public Accounts Committee
2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 40 - Children and Youth Affairs
9:00 am
Mr. Pat Smyth:
The emphasis or objective of the State is to keep children under 18 years out of the criminal justice system. The facility in Oberstown was part of the move away from the justice system. My colleagues will give more detail in that regard. Tusla's challenge is that we find an increasing number of older children, 16 and 17 year olds, with very high needs, cases in which criminality is an element of what they are dealing with and what we are trying to protect them from. That certainly has an impact on the resources we have available to deal with it. There can be very challenging cases.
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