Detaining just one young offender costs €500,000 per year

IT costs as much as €500,000 a year to keep just one young offender in a detention centre, it emerged yesterday.

Despite the huge cost, there is no comprehensive tracking system in place to determine what happens to the children when they leave the detention facilities.

Therefore, the State has no way of knowing if the detention serves any purpose, or whether the money spent represents value for money, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee heard yesterday.

There are five centres nationwide, run by the Department of Education to cater for children under 16 who have been convicted or placed on remand by a court.

The most expensive of these facilities in which to detain a young offender is the Finglas Child and Adolescent Centre in Co Dublin, which caters for boys. Last year, the average cost of detaining a child there was €507,000.

The average cost of detention at Oberstown Girls Centre, also in Dublin, was €454,000.

Oberstown Boys Centre spent an average of €282,000 on each child it detained.

Trinity House School in Lusk, Co Dublin, which caters for boys, spent an average of €362,000 per individual.

The cost of detention at St Joseph’s Special School in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, which also caters for boys, was €233,000.

Between them, the five facilities can cater for 114 children - 99 in the boys’ centres and 15 in the girls’ centre. At any one time last year, there was an average of 84 children detained.

The figures were released by department secretary general Bridget McManus.

Responding to criticism of the high cost of detention at Finglas, she said this centre was “out of line” with the other facilities because of “particular problems” experienced there.

An inspection at Finglas in 2002 found the facility was in acute crisis, lacking clear direction and having serious internal conflict.

A further review completed in May last year found management of the centre believed they had lost their capacity to deliver care to the offenders housed there.

Capacity at the centre was subsequently reduced from 26 to 12 places.

But committee members criticised the department for not having a comprehensive system in place to track offenders when they left the centre. Only Trinity formally follows up on the children it cares for.

Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins said it was “mind-boggling” that the department had no performance indicators in place.

But Ms McManus said an integrated management information system was being developed to cover the five centres.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that a €4.7 million unit to cater for especially troublesome children at Trinity has been lying idle since construction finished in 2003.

Ms McManus said the department was currently assessing staff requirements and possible usage levels, and insisted that the unit would be used.