Board holds crisis talks over €4.2midle unit

A €4.2 million secure unit for juvenile delinquents which has been lying idle since April was the subject of top-level talks yesterday to review its future.

Coovagh House in Limerick has been unable to hire staff. The original recommendation from the Mid-Western Health Board was that it needed 38 staff to cater for five boys. This was subsequently reduced to 22 staff, but they still couldn’t find employees.

The unit opened in September 2003, at a cost of over €4m, with a budget of €1.8m, yet only three boys were placed there from September to April this year. It was opened to comply with a High Court order in February 2000, after repeated warnings from the bench that there were inadequate facilities nationwide to detain juvenile criminals.