Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State will be pleased to hear that he has my party's support, as he had the support, as he acknowledged, of all the political parties and all Members in the House in June of last year when the original order was brought before the House.

We welcome the extension of the remit of the Ombudsman. It is something that the Minister supported. It was something that was previously called for by the Government's independent rapporteur on child protection, Dr. Geoffrey Shannon. It is to be welcomed.

However, questions must be asked about why, over 15 months later, this motion is before the House and the reason for such a protracted delay in highlighting the deficiencies in the legislation. Why has the Department let this happen? One would imagine that in framing the original amendment, due process would have been gone through, the relevant officials would have checked over it and the Office of the Attorney General would have ensured that it was correct on day one.

It leads me to ask whether the new Department of Children and Youth Affairs is adequately resourced and has adequate personnel to look after legislation. In the past two and a half years since the Department has been in situ, it has not been inundated with a plethora of legislation. In fact, before last summer was only the second time a piece of legislation emanated from that Department. There is a High Court challenge to the result of the children referendum because of mistakes made by that same Department. It is something that needs to be looked at seriously.

While we have the opportunity to talk about detention centres, the Minister of State will be aware that in May of this year a juvenile court judge challenged the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to explain the lack of spaces available to young offenders. In September last, there arose a situation in Limerick where a dangerous young criminal was placed in Limerick University Hospital among very sick patients because the State had no secure unit for him, and that youth ended up escaping from those services. This is something that I have highlighted with the Minister. It highlights, I suppose, the need to have the independent Ombudsman looking into this service. While I accept it is not directly Deputy Brian Hayes's responsibility, the reason there are such incidents, there is a chronic lack of space in the youth detention centres and there are vulnerable children, who are a danger to themselves and to society at large, who are not in a position to be detained is because of the recruitment embargo. From his own role, perhaps the Minister of State might be able to shed some light on whether the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, has been able to secure the additional staff to ensure the reopening of the eight-bed unit called Trinity House because she must take responsibility for young offenders, who are a danger both to themselves and to society at large.

The State is currently neglecting its responsibility. According to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, this is because of lack of resources and lack of appropriate staff. Deputy Brian Hayes is the Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and perhaps he can confirm whether the Minister has been successful in securing adequate additional resources to ensure that a similar situation does not arise again whereby a young criminal who had repeatedly offended was placed in University Hospital Limerick because the State had no secure unit for his detention. I support the motion.

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