Union warns against unqualified staff at Ballydowd

ALLOWING unqualified and inexperienced staff look after the country's most vulnerable children will increase the risk of violence to workers and young people at the Ballydowd centre, union officials warned yesterday.

The warning comes ahead of today's recruitment open day at Dublin's troubled Ballydowd facility, a unit that remains badly underused nearly two years after it opened.

An open day was organised in a bid to attract staff to work in the 24-bed unit. The South Western Area Health Board has admitted major difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff, the lack of whom means that less than a third of the 24 beds are in use at any given time.