Jim D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the statement of the Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter, that all young offenders will be moved from St. Patrick?s Institution by 2014 on foot of the Reilly report. The young people in St. Patrick?s Institution have been humiliated, suffered sensory deprivation and worse. Is it any wonder that children who go there as young offenders sometimes come out badly damaged mentally with cold hearts and that they are hardened against the world?

Some speakers were ungenerous to the Minister this morning in their comments. Emily Logan said that Alan Shatter was the first Minister of any party in many years who listened to her on the issue when she was being sneered at, laughed at and made fun of by senior officials. I agree with Senator Leyden that the full blame should not fall on prison officers. That is like blaming the prison guards in Dachau, Auschwitz or Belsen for the Holocaust. What has been exposed was institutionalised abuse sanctioned or treated with indifference at a high level and it does need to be discussed in this House. I support the call made by other speakers for a debate on the issue.