Teenagers’ secure unit staff still not trained for facility

THE Government’s secure unit for young teenagers, costing €9m, will lie idle when it is finally completed at the end of this month, it was claimed yesterday.

Essential training for staff to run St Patrick’s Special School has not even begun, seven months after the Government announced it was building the centre.

And there are growing concerns that Justice Minister Michael McDowell doesn’t even have the money necessary to operate the centre, once it is built.

St Patrick’s Special School for offenders aged 14 and 15 was announced last May following the tragic deaths of gardaí Tony Tighe and Michael Padden in a crash involving teenage car thieves.

The school, which was supposed to open last August, is being built at St Patrick’s Institution for young offenders aged 16-21 in Dublin.

“It was meant to be built by now. It will now be built by the end of December, but no staff have been trained to run it. So it will be lying idle at absolutely enormous expense to the Exchequer,” said a prison source.

Back in early May, Prison Service director general Seán Aylward reassured anxious prison officers that they would be trained in dealing with troublesome children before the centre was opened.

“Nothing has happened since May. We were told there would be training. We took Seán Aylward in good faith,” said Eugene Dennehy of the Prison Officers’ Association.

“This is a new departure for us. These are young children with problems. In other centres, the staff receive intensive training,” said Mr Dennehy.

A spokesman for the Prison Service said that while construction would finish at the end of the month, it could take another two months to fit it out and to carry out fire tests. He said it was too early to give an opening date.