Dr. Niall Muldoon:

Deputy Dowds is 100% correct. An important aspect for any young boy growing up is to have somebody he can follow and look up to. Unfortunately, as we divert things away from upstream, look back down to the preventative situations and cut funding there, it makes it harder for them to find the right person to look up to and, unfortunately, they look up to their peers, which is natural. However, if those peers are going in the wrong direction, it makes it much more difficult to turn the direction of their lives.

What one finds in Oberstown and places like is young people who still have an opportunity within that system to turn their lives around, to come out in a different way and to be rehabilitated, for the want of a better word. St. Patrick's was literally the old fashioned borstal and the opportunity to rehabilitate and change and to find therapeutic and educational opportunities were lost.

One of the complaints we got from St. Patrick's was of a young boy who had been in and out of detention since he was 15 years of age and who had been doing a very good job in Oberstown where he got the opportunity for therapy and education and he was moving towards the leaving certificate. However, as soon as he turned 17 years of age, he was put into St. Patrick's because that was still the law. Within a number of days of being in St. Patrick's, he was unfortunately caught in a violent situation and the disciplinary action of the staff was that he lost privileges and, therefore, educational and therapeutic opportunities were lost. The same situation will happen again because 17 year olds will be put in Wheatfield.

As we start to make progress with these young people in Oberstown - the set-up is as good as we would like it to be - they will still be moved to Wheatfield, which is unfortunate. We want to make sure we change that. The idea of one good adult, which is what Headstrong promotes, can turn a child's life around. Oberstown can be one of those last stops before the life is harder to turn around. That is what we are trying to promote here. Over the past 100 years, Ireland has locked up behind walls all of our problem situations.

This is one of the few that are left and we have to clear the dust out and start again - three settings on one site that are totally closed off and totally institutionalised. Even using the word "institutional" is very backward. We must have a situation in which we can blow the cobwebs away and start afresh with a campus manager. A campus manager should have an opportunity to start afresh in order to give those young people a new opportunity that will turn their life around. That is what we should be doing as opposed to creating career criminals, which is what has happened up to now.