Dr. Louise Forde:

I completely support all the points that have been made, especially around the need to ensure adequate support is available within the community for young people. Oberstown does great work but it is not the ideal place for the work to be carried out and it can be done in the community.

On the transition from Oberstown, there is a need for more robust supports for young people leaving Oberstown. This is something that has been noted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in terms of increasing community-based social reintegration supports for young people who are leaving the justice system. Something else noted by the research is the lack of support for reintegration. One of the points we made in our written submission is that the international standards, the Havana Rules, require supports to be given for reintegration. We do have some supports for this. You might draw a parallel for young people leaving the State care system who are in the care of the State. When young people are in Oberstown, they are in State care and they require supports to support them after that in making that transition and to help them to maintain any benefits that have been gained through the interventions within Oberstown. Providing a right to aftercare support and providing access to aftercare supports for young people leaving Oberstown would be really important.