Minister turns sod on €56m youth detention facility

Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald has hailed the start of work on the new national children’s detention facility on the Oberstown campus as a major step on the road to overhauling children’s services.

Ms Fitzgerald yesterday launched the construction phase of the child detention facilities in Lusk in north Co Dublin, which will increase capacity and improve services for children in care.

It will mean the end the detention of children in adult prison facilities. Work is expected to be completed on the €56.4m project in 2015, while the minister said additional care staff would also be employed.

Under the plan, the first three new residential units should be available in the third quarter of next year and will be used to facilitate the transfer of responsibility for 17-year-old boys from St Patrick’s Institution near Mountjoy to the Oberstown campus.

The remaining three units will be completed in 2015 and will replace existing accommodation, with the redevelopment also providing associated education, recreation, security, and other facilities.

Once completed, it will cater for about 90 young people in 10 units, with 17-year-olds to be transferred to the facility by the end of next year, joining 16-year-olds already on site.

Ms Fitzgerald said: “This is the culmination of a long process to design, fund and procure this project which, by increasing capacity on the Oberstown campus, will deliver on the Government’s commitment to end the use of St Patrick’s Institution for children detained by the courts.

“There have been numerous attempts over the years to progress this project but this Government has, at a time of major constraint for the public finances, committed the resources needed to resolve this issue once and for all.”

BAM Building Ltd secured the main contract but a number of specialist contractors will help with elements of the campus.

The launch of the construction project came on the day it was revealed that, on average, there is an injury to a child in residential care every day, according to figures provided to the Irish Examiner by the HSE.

However, Ms Fitzgerald stressed that other steps are being taken to improve the standard of care provided across the care sector, while children’s rights groups also backed the plan.

The minister said campus would also include a new integrated clinical team, an integrated care staff rostering system, a Central Staff Allocations Office and a single Oberstown campus manager.