Ms Koulla Yiasouma:

I will come to that because it is quite a complex question and is dependent on what is available in the community. The purpose of detention does not sit easy with me. As a child’s rights advocate and somebody who has children's rights running through my DNA, locking children up does not sit right with me. However, I also have seen some children commit the most awful offences. My test used to be whether I would be happy for that person to sit in the same classroom as my daughters. If my answer is “No”, then why should they sit in the same classroom with anybody else’s kids? There are a handful of children who commit such awful offences and many of them are those who go to Oberstown. We have, by necessity, places of detention for children.

On the minimum age of criminal responsibility, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is quite clear. For developed countries such as Ireland, it should be 14. It probably should be 16 actually. My position for the North was that it should be 16. Up until 1998 in Northern Ireland, we had something called doli incapax. The minimum age of criminal responsibility was ten, but between the ages of ten and 14, there was some sort of assessment with regard to the child’s understanding and that very thing – culpability. Did they have the maturity to be able to understand the consequences of what they had done? That was abolished in the North in legislation in 1998, roughly the same time as the Jamie Bulger murder happened in Liverpool. That seems to be something that the Senator would be suggesting. Bear in mind that many of the Scandinavian countries have a minimum age of criminal responsibility at 16 and, in some cases, higher and do not use secure care to get around it. They are able to respond to children who do the most heinous thing.

I go back to my answer to Deputy Sherlock’s question. If we had good community-based services that see the child as a unique individual and did not see kids in groups and not know what to do with the one who sits outside of that group, if we are comfortable as a society to meet the needs of all those children, we would see very few going into custody or even secure care. That is the job of a children's strategy. That is the work that Tusla, education, health and justice do.

What I am seeing in my early engagements with Oberstown and in the records is that young people are getting assessed. Within the first 72 hours they are getting a health assessment and their care plan is developed. They are also getting some good education assessment. The Senator is quite right that it is sometimes the first time their educational needs and level of learning is assessed. Why is it? Is it because they have a disability, a neurodisability or are on the spectrum - what is going on? Sometimes that is the first time that is happening. We know speech and language is critical for these young people. It would be great if those assessments were done before they went to school. It is critical. Then there are the mental health interventions, the drugs and alcohol, the education and the training. Sometimes, when they get into Oberstown, it is the first time they have had those individual assessments. That is not a reason for them to go to Oberstown.