Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon, for attending. The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, is detained in Geneva dealing with the UN periodic review.

Ireland has been criticised for our continued practice of detaining children in St. Patrick's Institution, a medium security prison dating back to 1850 on the Mountjoy complex. It has long been officially designated as unfit for the accommodation of children. The Government's commitment is to close the prison to 16-17 year olds and end the practice of detaining children there with immediate effect. However, events in Geneva today show that Ireland continues to be criticised for detaining children in the institution.

I am grateful to the Irish Penal Reform Trust, IPRT, for forwarding me figures. On 10 December 2010, 38 boys aged 16 and 17 years were in the institution. In 2009, a total of 227 boys aged 16 and 17 years were committed to the institution. It is an institution where male offenders between the ages of 16 and 21 years are detained. Boys and girls under 16 years of age are detained in the children detention schools, but boys over the age of 16 years continue to be detained in St. Patrick's Institution. The Ombudsman for Children, the Children's Rights Alliance and the IPRT have consistently called for an immediate end to the detention of children in the institution. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and, recently, Thomas Hammerberg, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights have all called for an end to this practice.

In answer to previous questions and in light of the commitment in the programme for Government, the Minister has stated that he intends to move boys aged 16 to 17 years to a new building at the Oberstown detention school in Lusk. My concern and that of Deputies who raised this matter in the Dáil is that the Minister has given no timeframe for the closure of St. Patrick's Institution to children and for the removal of the children to Lusk.

In light of the commitment to move children to Lusk and the lack of a timeframe, Commissioner Hammerberg recommends in his report that the authorities should start phasing out St. Patrick's Institution immediately for children by moving a pilot group to Lusk and by integrating that experience into the planning process for the enhancement of the detention schools.

Will the Minister of State cite a specific date by which the unacceptable detention of children in St. Patrick's Institution will end? If there is to be a further delay, will he outline a timeframe? In the short term, will the children who continue to be detained in the institution be given access to the complaints mechanism of the Ombudsman for Children? Paragraph 9 of the Commissioner's report was highly critical of the fact that children detained in St. Patrick's Institution, unlike the children in detention schools, do not have access to the Ombudsman for Children, which means they cannot raise complaints about specific aspects of their detention.

St. Patrick's Institution is regarded as being wholly inappropriate for children because of its regime and the facts that children spend much of the day locked up and have family visits screened. There are uniformed officers and Victorian prison architecture. A large proportion of these children are held in protection due to fears for their safety. The widespread availability of drugs within the establishment and the high levels of bullying and inter-prisoner violence have been cited as reasons for not detaining children in the institution.

In the course of my criminal justice work, I have met children who were detained in the institution. They recounted appalling stories about the treatment they endured there.