MINORS WERE committed to St Patrick’s Institution, part of the Mountjoy Prison complex, on 262 occasions last year, a practice which has been deemed “completely inappropriate” by the Irish Penal Reform Trust.
Despite a long-standing commitment by successive governments that 16- and 17-year-olds will be moved to a new-build facility in Oberstown in Lusk, the project was not included on the Government’s capital investment framework for 2012 to 2016.
The Government has denied that plans for the Lusk facility had been shelved, saying that they are instead being redrawn as the original costs were too high.
However, executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, Liam Herrick, said the fact remained that there was no budget allocation for the facility at this time and that, even in the interim period, the facility was totally inappropriate for the detention of 16- and 17-year-olds.
He said that, in the absence of action on a new-build facility at Lusk, there was an “absolutely binding responsibility” on the State to now look at other options.
“The fact that we can’t end the practice of detaining children in St Patrick’s immediately does not mean that we shouldn’t be looking to reduce the number of young people in St Patrick’s in the interim period.”
He said this could include diverting some young people to other facilities or examining whether the high proportion of young people who are currently on remand could be supervised on bail in the community.
“Given that the overall numbers of young people detained in Patrick’s is not very large – it’s approximately 40 at one time – it shouldn’t be an insurmountable problem to find alternative accommodation for these young people and for the youth justice system to provide a timetable for transferring the boys out of St Patrick’s.”
Senator and former chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance Jillian Van Turnhout said that, while she welcomed the Government’s commitment to stop the detention of minors in St Patrick’s, she was disheartened that no action had yet been taken.
“The detention of children in St Patrick’s Institution has been widely acknowledged as a glaring human rights violation and in direct contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. St Patrick’s Institution has an adult regime and while there is a dedicated unit to accommodate some of the children they still have regular access to common areas for all inmates.”
Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said last month that the Oberstown project would not be covered by the Government capital investment framework for 2012 to 2016.
On Tuesday a spokeswoman for the Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, denied that the project was being shelved but that the original €90 million proposed cost of the facility was too high and was being redrawn. The new cost is expected to be €65 million.
The figures for the number of committals of 16- and 17-year-olds at St Patrick’s Institution are provisional ahead of the publication of the Prison Service’s annual report, due out later this year.
ST PATRICK'S: FACTFILE
St Patrick’s Institution is a closed, medium-security prison managed by the Irish Prison Service, for male offenders aged 16-21 years in the Mountjoy Prison complex.
The practice of detaining 16- and 17-year-olds at the facility has been widely criticised.
As recently as June 2011 the UN Committee Against Torture said that the State should build “without delay” a proposed national children detention facility at Oberstown in Lusk, Co Dublin, in order to end the detention of children at St Patrick’s Institution.
In a report published in February 2011 the Ombudsman for Children Emily Logan, said she “strongly believes children should not be detained in a prison environment and is seeking a commitment from the new Government to expedite the closure of St Patricks Institution as a place of detention for children”.
In late 2010 a report by prison chaplains singled out St Patrick’s Institution for mention, criticising that all young people in St Patrick’s Institution were locked in their cells for at least 16 hours each day, while about a quarter were “on protection” meaning that most of them were confined to their cells for 23 hours each day.