Children in detention cost over €200,000

NO inspections have been carried out at three of the State’s detention centres for children since 1999, despite a legal requirement they should be inspected on an annual basis.

It also emerged from the C&AG report that the average cost for each detainee was over €200,000.

Despite inspectors concluding that one of only two centres inspected was in “acute crisis”, the Department of Education told the C&AG there was no indication of difficulties in the other facilities.

Dublin’s Finglas Child and Adolescent Centre was visited in 2002 and it was found that the organisation was in acute crisis, lacking clear direction, not meeting a number of basic requirements and having internal, undermining conflicts.

In May 2004, staff and management reported they had lost their “capacity” for the day-to-day delivery of care. The centre was downsized, catering for 12 persons instead of 26. This is despite €5 million being invested since 2001.

Three centres, Oberstown Boys and Oberstown Girls, and Trinity House, all at Lusk in north Dublin, have not been inspected.

The Department of Education is now considering appointing an inspector of children’s centres or asking the Irish Social Services Inspectorate to carry out the inspections.

The five centres cost €75m to run over three years to the end of 2003. The average spend on each detainee was over €200,000.

The C&AG’s report also revealed details of a tracking scheme for former detainees of Trinity House.

Within six months, of the 57 young people tracked, 25 were residing at home, 24 were in prison, three were in residential care in the Health Board sector, two were homeless and one had returned to Trinity House.