Plan to remove juveniles from St Pat’s

A PLEDGE to end the practice of sending children to St Patrick’s detention centre in the new Programme for Government has been given a guarded but sceptical welcome by the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT).

St Pat’s has long been criticised for housing both adults and 16 and 17-year-old boys, and is breaching the UN convention on the rights of the child by doing so.

A spokesperson for the IPRT said they were “highly concerned” that a new facility at Oberstown, which is supposed to cater for those youths, does not have the funding to progress as planned.