James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In response to Senator Cullinane, I am not in a position to give him a concrete timeline at the moment but certainly that is the direction of travel.

On the circumstances where it would not be in the child's best interests to be separated from children that have been sentenced, there is a strict policy of keeping male and female children in separate residential facilities in all cases. In recent years there have been very few female children in custody and on many occasions in the past 18 months there have been none in custody, including today. That is a welcome development. Due to the low number in custody there is only one unit of accommodation used for females. There is no practical method of providing two units of residential accommodation for female children in such circumstances, given that the primary demand for detention places is for males.

In addition, if two female children were in custody and one was remanded while the other served a sentence, I do not believe, and I think many people would agree with me, that it would be in their best interests, as the only females in custody, to be kept in de facto solitary confinement from one another. Other examples would include if there were two children from the same family, ethnic group, nationality or geographical area, with one on remand and one serving a sentence. In such cases it is entirely possible it would be in their interest to be accommodated together, although I hasten to add not always. In that regard, Senators can understand the exigencies.

I make the following appeal, which is something that continually faces us as politicians. Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good. The Bill is very good and moves us along considerably. This is a new unit, ethos and era where no one under 18 years will find themselves in prison, rather in a detention school where the ethos is based on rehabilitation, education and preparation for life, as opposed to the penal servitude system of the prison service.