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”, writes Noel Baker.

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”.