Oberstown detention centre: Spectacular failure can’t be ignored

VERY few societies can be as sensitive as Ireland to suggestions that young people held in State care might be in jeopardy. 

Very few societies need to be as alert to the suggestion that child-care or juvenile-detention systems are less than optimal, or that being a resident, or an employee, in one carries a palpable level of threat. Our terrible record of abandoned children, in State-endorsed and funded care, and the terrible legacies of those scandals mean any other response would be impossible and immoral.

Yet, that seems to be the situation at Oberstown, the juvenile detention centre, in north Co Dublin, where a recent riot exposed many weaknesses in the newly-revamped system. The rampage led to injuries among staff, and industrial action over what has been described as bad planning and management during the transfer of offenders from the St Patrick’s youth prison in Mountjoy over the last two years.