Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fianna Fáil supports this Bill, the main purpose of which is to facilitate the long overdue complete closing of St. Patrick's Institution. In July 2013, the then Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Alan Shatter, said St. Patrick's Institution was to be closed down and all prisoners moved to different institutions within six months. Subsequently, in September 2014, the Children's Ombudsman, Ms Emily Logan, referred to the closure as an unfinished project with eight vulnerable boys remaining at the facility.

St. Patrick's Institution for young offenders finally closed its doors on 30 March this year. Its closure had been recommended for decades. In 1985, the Committee of Inquiry into the Penal System recommended the closing of St. Patrick's as soon as possible.

In 2012, am inspection report by the Inspector of Prisons on St. Patrick's Institution said that a combination of, inter alia, weak management, the culture in the prison, the inattention to human rights norms, prisoners on protection, and the prevalence of drugs meant that St. Patrick's has not lived up to the mission statement of the Irish Prison Service. The inspector's report stated:

To say there is a culture in St. Patrick's where the human rights of some prisoners are either ignored or violated is a serious statement. Individual instances, where the rights of prisoners appear to have been ignored or violated, may not indicate a culture. However, when the number of instances, found by me and outlined in this chapter, are taken together the cumulative effect can only lead to the conclusion that there is a culture in St. Patrick's which results in the human rights of some prisoners - children and young adults - being either ignored or violated.

The inspector also said that this was not to be taken as an indictment of the vast majority of officers who, in the course of their work, show respect to and an understanding of the prisoners in their care. They act in a professional manner when at times circumstances can be very challenging.

Subsequently, in 2012, in his annual report the Inspector of Prisons said, "I am satisfied that, despite the undoubted efforts of management the culture referred to by me in my St. Patrick's report has not changed". He also said he was "satisfied that the Irish Prison Service can no longer guarantee the safe and secure custody of young offenders detained in St. Patrick's Institution". He went on to make the following four recommendations: first, that St. Patrick's Institution should be closed forthwith; second, that prisoners should be dispersed to other institutions where they could be guaranteed safe and secure custody; third, that existing staff in St. Patrick's Institution should be dispersed to other institutions; and fourth, that the name, St. Patrick's Institution, should be consigned to history.

St. Patrick's Institution was established in 1904 in Clonmel. It moved to the present site in 1956. In 2012, it was catering for males aged between 16 and 21 years. In reality it was two separate entities: a B division for children aged 16 and 17 years; and C and D divisions for adults aged 18 to 21 years. Another area known as "the unit" catered for one section of prisoners who, because of the nature of their particular crimes, cannot be accommodated with other prisoners. The unit catered for both children and adult prisoners.

The Fianna Fáil spokesperson on children, Deputy Robert Troy, has said that the severity and graphic nature of the report into St. Patrick's Institution must be treated with the utmost seriousness. He commented that:

The detention of 17-year-olds at St. Patrick's should cease immediately and they should be transferred to Oberstown or other appropriate rehabilitation facilities. The focus must shift from simple punishment to rehabilitation ... We can no longer wait for the May 2014 deadline. The report into St. Patrick's Institution has called for a review of this timeline and I will support any initiative Minister Shatter or Minister Fitzgerald seek to put in place to provide an appropriate setting for these vulnerable young people. No child should ever be detained at St. Patrick's again. This is the first time a report has identified that the human rights of young people were being seriously violated by the conditions at St. Patrick's Institution ... I think it is important to remember that these are children first and young offenders second. Of course, where criminal offences take place, the appropriate sanction must be applied but we must have a system in place that will rehabilitate young people back into society, and one that is not simply focussed on detention. It is clear from the Inspector of Prisons' report that far from rehabilitating offenders, St. Patrick's Institution has hardened many prisoners and allowed drug abuse to foster in a completely unsuitable environment for children. I want to commend the Inspector of Prisons for his report. His dogged and determined efforts to get to the bottom of what has really been going on at St. Patrick's Institution shows a great commitment to public service and the welfare and right of children.

As regards young offenders' rehabilitation, earlier this year Fianna Fáil supported the passage of the Children (Amendment) Bill 2015, the main purpose of which was to enable the amalgamation of the three children's detention schools in Oberstown, Lusk, Co. Dublin and to provide for the necessary legal changes required to end the detention of children in adult detention facilities.

Rehabilitation must be a paramount consideration in the detention of young people. Oberstown is the most appropriate environment for the small number of young people for whom detention is necessary. Nevertheless, it is vital to ensure that the detention or imprisonment of a child, whether on remand or under sentence, is only ever used as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time, as required by the Children Act 2001.

The Irish Penal Reform Trust, IPRT, along with the Ombudsman for Children, the Children's Rights Alliance, Empowering People in Care or EPIC, and many other youth justice advocates, are concerned about the over use of detention of children for welfare reasons. Children in the detention school system will often have had an experience of the care system, with many under HSE care at the time of their committal, and some coming directly into the detention system from secure care. This group is among the most vulnerable group of children in Ireland. Many of the traumatic factors which led to the children being taken into care in the first place are also at the root of their offending behaviour.

The children's detention schools system invests its resources into addressing these challenges, and what can be the extremely challenging behaviour of these young people. We have a duty to support these young people leaving detention in their efforts to desist from offending behaviour, through the provision of aftercare, safe housing and support, and to ensure they do not return to the chaotic conditions which gave rise to their offending behaviour in the first instance. It could change their lives and, in turn, lead to safer communities for everybody. In accordance with international human rights standards, and particularly in line with the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, custody for children should only be used as a last resort and for the minimum required period of time. International law stipulates that all efforts should be made to apply alternatives to detention to ensure that any such measure is only used in exceptional circumstances.

Earlier this year the Irish Penal Reform Trust called for more support for young adult offenders. It said that the Department of Justice and Equality should develop a strategy to deal specifically with young adults aged 18 to 24 years within the criminal justice system. The trust called for measures to support young offenders who are what it described as being "on a transitional journey from childhood into adulthood".

A report entitled The Turnaround Youth: Young Adults (aged 18-24) in the Criminal Justice System shows that human brain and maturity continue to develop into the mid-20s, which means that young adults are particularly vulnerable to peer pressure. The report also found that socioeconomic factors such as unemployment, not being in education and living in a disadvantaged area led to young adults becoming substance-dependent and at a greater risk of offending.

According to Ms Deirdre Malone, executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, "The current justice system has created a cliff face off which you fall within months of your 18th birthday. We're relying on the most expensive and the least effective way of reducing re-offending - and it doesn't make economic sense or social sense". The IPRT found that in Ireland, "once a person reaches 18 years, they are no longer treated as a child but become immediately answerable to the laws and regulations that govern the adult population, regardless of their level of maturity or vulnerability".

Prison should only be a sanction of last resort for young adults, particularly those convicted of non-violent offences, the report says. While only 9% of the population is aged 18 to 24 years, this age group makes up 24% of the numbers in Irish prisons according to data from the Central Statistics Office. A recent study from the Irish Prison Service also found that 68% of people aged 21 to 25 years of age re-offended after release, compared to 53% of the rest of the population.

I will now refer to the problems experienced at the Oberstown facility earlier this year.

Four persons, aged 15 and 16 years, fled the facility on 25 July. This was the third group of teenagers to break out of the north Dublin facility. The escape was a sharp reminder of the need to address the serious security issues at the facility.

The Oberstown centre, near Lusk in north County Dublin, has undergone a €56 million redevelopment recently and taken in children who were detained in the St. Patrick's youth wing in Mountjoy Prison. Before then the Oberstown centre held around 35 children, aged between 12 and 17 years. Workers have complained that they are under-resourced and understaffed owing to a high number of staff going on sick leave following assaults by children detained at the centre. Since March, 31 staff have had periods off work as a result of injury caused by assault, in restraining detainees or by accident. Morale is low and, according to media reports, highly critical Health Information and Quality Authority reports have done little to boost confidence.

Between March and July this year, according to a report submitted by staff to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children, nine female and 22 male staff suffered injuries that included concussion, nerve damage, throat injury due to strangulation, muscle and ligament damage, stabbings, bites and having hair pulled out at the roots. The staff say the crisis inside the centre was precipitated by bad planning and management of the programme to transfer young offenders from the St. Patrick's youth wing in the Mountjoy Prison complex to Oberstown in the past two years. Staff considered taking industrial action in the face of the lack of Government action to address the problems at Oberstown.

Oberstown is not purely a custodial setting. There are education and therapeutic services, as well as access to psychiatric services. The aim is very much to attempt to change the course of a young person's life and such a setting is the only one suitable for offenders under 18 years.

A HIQA inspection that took place in October indicated improvements in some areas of concern such as restriction of the use of single separation, but significant deficits remain in other areas. However, there is still huge mistrust of management by staff at the facility. Staff appear to be overburdened and simply do not have time to build personal relationships of trust with the children in their care. According to the report, morale at the facility is still very low. It is clear that many of the staff remain distressed after the terrible stabbing incident which took place during the summer and which could potentially have been fatal. There is a lack of trust by staff in risk management and many still feel the health, safety and well-being of workers at the facility are not being regarded sufficiently by senior management.

Over the summer we urged the Minister, Deputy James Reilly, to intervene to ensure staff would receive more training to deal with the violent behaviour of some of the older, newer inmates who had been transferred from St. Patrick's Institution. It is imperative that Minister act on the recommendations made in the report and engage with staff concerns to facilitate management reforms at the facility. We are happy, however, to support the legislation.

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