Ms Saoirse Brady:

Based on the demographics of Oberstown, you are more likely to be in Oberstown if you are a Traveller. Between 23% and 33% of young people in Oberstown are Travellers, who face systemic and structural discrimination every day of their lives. There is an over-representation of young people with care experience. Young people often go into Oberstown because their behaviour in a care setting has been criminalised. They might have damaged property in a care setting. We do not have enough secure care beds and very often that is what is required. I was at a conference recently held by the ACJRD, the Association for Criminal Justice Research and Development, where Judge Paul Kelly, who is president of the District Court and oversees the Children’s Court, talked about a particular case. Young people might age out of the system completely and they should maybe have had secure care before that. This happens all the time where you see young people in that system who would have been better served by having a secure care bed or, even better, having access to the mental health supports that they needed or the family support that is needed as well. The majority of young people who end up in the youth justice system may have experienced an adverse childhood experience themselves. They have often lost a parent, whether that is through going into State care, through bereavement or sometimes where the parent has gone to prison themselves. We really need to address those matters.

At the other end of it, Oberstown does amazing work but then there is no through-care, so if somebody leaves Oberstown, sometimes it stops. There is no aftercare support and Oberstown is not able to provide that support, both because of capacity and because of the way the system is currently structured.

The other thing I would draw attention to is the bail support scheme. I have spoken to this committee about this before. There is a proposal now to extend the bail support scheme nationwide and we outlined in our submission that it is available in Dublin, Limerick and Cork. We are seeing judges use it where it is available. There is a proposal by Extern, the organisation that provides bail support, to extend that nationwide by providing bail support in Donegal, the midlands and Waterford. If we look at where the young people are coming from, particularly those who end up on remand in Oberstown, they are coming from areas where bail support is not available. It is highly successful for those young people who engage with it and where they can work with the family as well. We can provide more data on that to the committee, which we have got from Extern.