Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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225. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if his Department is taking measures to ensure sufficient space in a detention centre (details supplied) for those who are detained as a last resort due to serious criminal activity; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17715/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Oberstown Children Detention Campus (Oberstown) is Ireland’s sole national centre for the detention, care and education of young people under 18 years referred by the courts on detention or remand orders. Established under the Children Act 2001, as amended, Oberstown provides individualised care to young people through an integrated multi-professional approach that enables young people to address their offending behaviour and return successfully to society. It is governed by a Board of Management appointed by the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality under sections 164 and 167 of the Act.

The primary role of Oberstown is to provide a programme of care and education aimed at rehabilitating those children referred to Oberstown by the courts. As per Section 158 of the Act, the principal object of Oberstown is to provide appropriate educational, training and other programmes and facilities for children referred to them by a court and to promote the child’s reintegration into society and prepare the child to take his/her place in the community as a person who observes the law and is capable of making a positive and productive contribution to society.

The Oberstown Campus includes a large school, with a varied primary, secondary and vocational curriculum delivered by the Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board, and a health suite that offers a full range of medical and health services. Specialist programmes address offending behaviours and their underlying factors. Children have access to Tusla’s Assessment, Consultation and Therapy Service (ACTS), a national service that determines a young person’s need for specialist assessment or intervention. Placement planning with a multidisciplinary team is a key focus in preparation for leaving Oberstown to return to the community or on an onward placement.

Oberstown has achieved significant progress in recent years in embedding a children’s rights approach and improving the standard of care and education provided, in accordance with the principles and provisions of the Act. The adoption of a bespoke rights-based model of care from 2016 onwards and the more recent (2021) adoption of a Children’s Rights Policy Framework (a set of rules that governs all aspects of the provision of care on the Campus) have been critical to this.

Under the Children Act 2001 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), to which Ireland is a party, detention of children is to be used as a measure of last resort and for the shortest time possible.

The maximum occupancy in Oberstown is set by the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality by way of a certificate made under the Children Act 2001. This is currently set at 46 (40 boys and 6 girls). This includes children on detention orders and children who have been remanded by the courts.

Residential accommodation in Oberstown consists of 6 purpose-built units. At present, five units are for boys, with a maximum of eight boys on each unit, and the remaining unit can accommodate six girls.

Section 144 of the Children Act states that the court shall not make an order imposing a period of detention on a child unless it is satisfied that detention is the only suitable way of dealing with the child and that a place in a children detention school is available for him or her. Oberstown operates a robust bed management system which is well established and understood by all agencies of the state involved in youth justice. A detention order can only be made by a court once the court has established that a bed is available.

The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth closely monitors daily occupancy levels in Oberstown. Recent occupancy data show an increase in the proportion of days on which Oberstown is at or near maximum occupancy, such that the option of detention is not always available to the courts. Mindful that detention of children must always be a last resort, the Department works with the Department of Justice, which has lead responsibility for the wider youth justice system, to ensure that sufficient meaningful alternatives to detention are available for courts to deal with children whose offences do not necessarily meet the threshold for detention.

The Programme for Government commits to the expansion of prevention and diversion programmes in the youth justice system. Notwithstanding this, detention must be available to the courts to deal with the most serious offences by children, and in this connection, the Department, with Oberstown, is examining the possibility of providing a small number of additional places for boys within the existing accommodation.

Regarding longer-term capacity planning, the Youth Justice Strategy 2021 to 2027 includes the following commitment:

1. We will implement a research-based assessment of likely demands for Detention places and services and the consequent resource requirements over a 5-year period to inform future strategic options as well as ongoing planning, budgeting and service development.