Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome the provisions included in this Bill which will bring about an amalgamation of detention schools and formally end the references to St. Patrick's Institution. There is, however, a certain irony in this debate because we are welcoming something that we really believe should not be in place. If we genuinely mean prison should be used as a last resort and that we should be striving towards a society where children are not detained anywhere, we have to step back and analyse how we have got to where we are and decide where we really want to go. It would be most welcome if we had no children in detention. We must learn from our past in this regard. It has taken decades of recommendations and commitments by successive Governments to get to where we are. I must point out that 30 years ago, in 1985, the Whitaker committee recommended the closure of St. Patrick's Institution, while 25 years ago Ireland signed up to the UN Rules for the Protection of Children Deprived of their Liberty. Rule No. 29 reads as follows: "In all detention facilities juveniles should be separated from adults, unless they are members of the same family". These are commitments that we have not abided by for decades and while Ireland is not a country that moves quickly on any issue, this must be a new record. The trenchant and repeated criticism by a roll-call of international human rights bodies have pushed us to this point. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the European Committee on Social Rights and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights have all repeatedly said Ireland must stop the practice of detaining children in adult prisons. It has taken us decades to get here because poor and marginalised children in trouble have never been high up the list of priorities. If children are disadvantaged in their early years, that disadvantage will follow them throughout their lives. We should mark it, given that we are approaching the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the State and the aspiration to treat all children of the nation equally. Part of the problem has been identified by penal reformers. If we really believe the goal should be prevention, we need a long-term strategy, with steady and sustained intervention throughout a child's life. Unfortunately, a child's life does not neatly fit with the five year term of a Government, which is why thisissue has fallen off the list. If we are saying it needs to be prioritised, an overarching strategy that deals with children's lives rather than one that fits with electoral and Government terms has to be developed.

The 2001 Children Act provided that children should be detained in detention schools up to the age of 16 years and in detention centres between the ages of 16 and 18. Detention centres for children were to be places suitable for the detention of minors in that age category. In that context, an adult prison could never be suitable, but we continued to place children there until March this year.

I am very glad that we have relatively recently ended the practice of remanding children to St. Patrick's Institution, but it has been a very long journey. Why did it take that long to finish the work on the Oberstown facility? The cost of the facility was about €56 million, but it has taken since March 2008 to have it built. I fully appreciate the blame does not lie on the shoulders of the Government alone, although the former Minister for Justice and Equality on his appointment after the general election put the project on hold. However, it is good that we are where we are. When talking about vulnerable young people at a stage in their lives that will leave deep scars, one day is too long, not to mention the fact that getting to where we are with the Oberstown facility has taken the best part of a decade. It is about prioritising young people. We have to analyse that issue. It is a bit of a coincidence that the €56 million it took to build the Oberstown facility is €3 million less than the €59 million the State paid out in claims to members of the public who were victims of Garda malpractice. It took seven years to find €56 million for this project, but we were able to find €4 million overnight for the IBRC commission of investigation. We were obviously very glad that the commission was set up, but it would not have been needed if the Minister for Finance had done his job and answered the questions he was asked in the first place. Therefore, we can find money when we need to do so, but in other instances we cannot. That is not good enough. We need to learn from the lessons of the past.

Other Deputies have mentioned that only 27% of children who had been on remand went on to be sentenced and placed in detention in 2013. Sadly, that figure increased to 45% in 2014. We need to step back and ask why they were detained. The issue that has been highlighted of remanding children for breach of bail conditions needs serious review. As the Irish Penal Reform Trust has pointed out, no support or supervision is provided for children while on bail. Perhaps it is unsurprising, therefore, that many failed to comply with the bail conditions imposed. When they fail to comply with these conditions, they end up being placed in detention on remand, often for lengthy pre-trial periods, which is a very serious issue.

Even if we leave aside the issue of children over 17 years, Deputy Mick Wallace and others have pointed out that four in ten of the children under 16 in custody on remand have an intellectual disability. The 2007 study of children in detention found that they most often came from families with at least one other member with a criminal conviction. The majority present with a history of behavioural problems, mental health difficulties and often drug and other substance abuse since early childhood. They are really vulnerable. How have we treated vulnerable young people in the lifetime of this Dáil? The statistics show that poor children and single parents have been the biggest victims of the cuts. We know about the cuts to the numbers of SNAs and special resource teachers who would help many of these children in their early developing years. Barnardos pointed to the need to invest an extra €100 million to ensure primary schools were genuinely free. If we are serious about dealing with young people in detention, we must start with the conditions into which they are born and the education and health care services they receive to fulfil their potential.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which we ratified in 1992 states the detention of children should be a last resort and for the shortest possible period of time. Last year 132 children were sent to detention schools. In Sweden which has a population twice the size of Ireland's only 119 individuals aged between 15 and 18 years were sent to a detention school in 2014. Sweden does not allow anybody under the age of 15 years to be detained and in 2013 closed four of its prisons, even though there had been no reduction in crime. We need to develop such an approach.

I am concerned that the Bill removes the upper limit in the 2001 Act of three years in detention for children. This provision must be removed. As previous speakers mentioned, instead of providing more spaces in detention facilities or moving children from one detention facility to another, our focus should be on preventing children from being sent to detention centres in the first place. As Deputy Mick Wallace highlighted, where the Irish system regards a person who receives a custodial sentence negatively as an offender, other countries emphasise that sentenced individuals are citizens who are primarily regarded as people with needs and who need to be helped.

While we are all very glad that we are ending the practice of putting children in adult jails, we also need to end the practice of putting children in any form of detention centre. We should move towards having far fewer adults incarcerated, except in very exceptional circumstances.

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