Troubled youths - State fails to provide again

Last year over €2.3 million was spent on sending 15 troubled young people abroad for specialist care.

This was a significant increase on the more than €800,000 spent on sending nine young people abroad for treatment in 2009.

Some of the costs are staggering, such as a place in secure care in Scotland, costing £478,000 annually, or specialist therapeutic care in the famous Boystown, Nebraska, at the cost of €356,000 annually. By comparison, the therapeutic care in Hassela Gotland, Sweden, seems almost like a bargain at €140,000 annually. The Hassela Gotland detention centre for youths is located on a remote island in the Baltic Sea. Two other Irish children were sent there for help in recent years.

Of course, in the midst of the economic crisis, some people will possibly see this as rewarding delinquents with virtual holidays abroad. Such thinking is, of course, grossly simplistic. In a sense, the whole thing is a measure of our own failure.

Surely those cases could be treated in this country.

It would make much more sense to train people abroad, if necessary, to undertake such work in Ireland. This is not to decry the treatment of troubled young people.

If the treatment for such youngsters is effective, it will cost society much less than the ultimate cost of ignoring those young people and allowing them to develop into troubled adults.