David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

The ombudsman also maintains that boys aged 16 and 17 years continue to be detained in St. Patrick's institution, a prison, despite the enactment of legislation in 2001 which committed the State to removing all children from the adult prison system. Conditions, the ombudsman maintains, in St. Patrick's institution have been widely criticised by national and international bodies. That is the current position. This information was published only last week by the ombudsman by way of reaction to the Ryan report when published.

The ombudsman also points out that large numbers of children considered at risk have not been allocated a social worker; a significant number of schools in the country are not implementing the Stay Safe Programme, which aims to develop children's ability to recognise, resist and report risk situations or abusive encounters. In many of these cases, it is the registrars that are preventing this from happening because they are afraid that the innocence of children will be somehow damaged, which is rubbish.

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