Gardaí called to manage risk at troubled children residential centre

A report into a residential centre for troubled children has found that gardaí were sometimes called “as a method of managing risk”.

The inspection by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) into the unnamed centre in the south of the country found that, in some incidents, staff had been assaulted and children had been arrested. Data returned to Hiqa showed that gardaí were called to the campus 10 times since the last inspection “to support the management of behaviour”.

It also found that staff on the campus were not able to ensure safe use of mobile phones for all young people. In some cases, phones were monitored and removed when unsuitable content was accessed, but in other cases staff were unable to monitor phones even though there were fears as to what content was being viewed.