Detention of children at St Pat’s to end

The long-criticised practice of detaining children at St Patrick’s Institution will end within two years, beginning with 16-year-olds who will no longer be kept there from May 1.

Frances Fitzgerald, the children’s minister, said capital funding of €50m would be available to provide new facilities over the next two years at Oberstown children’s detention campus to accommodate all children detained by the courts.

She said that from May 1, all newly remanded or sentenced 16-year-olds would be detained at Oberstown.

Currently, due to an ongoing lack of facilities, once a teenage boy reaches 16 he is sent to St Pat’s by the courts. The youth may only be on remand for a petty crime, and might later be acquitted. So in theory, a young person who has not been convicted could be mixing with someone who has committed murder.

Pioneering research is ongoing with the young people who end up in St Pat’s.

Carried out by a team led by the head of the Central Mental Hospital, Harry Kennedy, it found that most of the young people locked up in St Pat’s had been frequently intoxicated since the age of 12. Starting with glue, they moved on to cannabis and then harder drugs.

About 100 young offenders, 40% of whom were 16 or 17, were interviewed as part of the research, which looked at young people who were at ultra-high risk of developing psychosis due to problematic drug use in the prison setting.

The research revealed:

* One of the 100 was assessed as already displaying signs of psychosis.

* 24% were diagnosed as ultra-high risk.

* Ecstasy use in particular increased a young person’s risk by 10.5%, by comparison with headshop drugs (3.5%), benzodiazepines (2%) and cocaine (2%).

Mr Kennedy said prisons were toxic for young people and drug-free units were crucial, particularly for the younger age group, if only to prevent schizophrenia and other debilitating mental illnesses.

Ms Fitzgerald also announced the enhanced provision of specialist therapeutic services for children in residential institutions, in both the child detention schools and special care units operated by the HSE.

“A specialist, multi-disciplinary service is being established for this purpose with the recruitment of a director for this service already under way,” she said.

Ms Fitzgerald said the investment was key in addressing the serious problems of Ireland’s most troubled teens.

“The path from St Patrick’s Institution to Mountjoy Prison has been too well worn over the years,” she said.

“We must interrupt the predictable path of violence and crime and repeat offending progressing to further serious offending and committals in adult prisons. This development will allow us to place these young people in a secure environment that will offer them a second chance to be productive people who contribute to society.”