Residential places plan is welcome

THE Government allocation of 38.9m euro to provide support care for troubled children should be money well spent.

This is an area that certainly deserves priority, because money spent properly now could help to straighten out those troubled children before they turn into maladjusted adults who will become an even greater and more dangerous burden on society.

Many, if not most of the children in question, are victims of unfortunate circumstances, usually through no fault of their own.

They are not offenders sentenced by the courts, but they are frequently very disturbed. They have run away from broken or dysfunctional homes, lived rough, and often been exposed to drugs. They need immediate help, and this should be provided, both from a practical and a moral standpoint.

Helping those children now could save a lot more money in the long run. It could also save a tremendous amount of heartache.

The courts have repeatedly complained in recent years about the lack of sufficient residential places for children and teenagers in need of special care or protection. This has not only compounded but also helped to cultivate problems. In the process, we have been virtually ensuring more intractable difficulties down the road.

Plans to provide up to 72 new residential places for non-offending children in the coming months should be warmly welcomed as evidence of the Government’s readiness to tackle the problem. New units, each with 24 residential places for children with special needs, are due to open in Castleblaney, Co Monaghan, and at Portane, Co Dublin. A further 24 places are also due to be made available at the Ballydowd Centre, in Lucan, Co Dublin.

The Ballydowd Centre had previously been partially opened. It has been ready for some time, but there were difficulties in securing trained staff. The Department of Health had to recruit people from abroad, while awaiting the graduation of those undergoing training in this country. The three different centres will, in the coming weeks, take in children gradually, so they can build up a level of trust with the staff. It would be a recipe for

disaster to introduce them all at the one time. Lessons have fortunately been learned from earlier mistakes.

Minister of State for Children Brian Lenihan has acknowledged that the new places will only solve the immediate accommodation problem, but he emphasised his commitment to tackle the root causes to curtail the need for such special residential facilities in the first place. That must inevitably be a much longer-term goal.

For too long, the State virtually ignored these problems by passing them off on well-intentioned and, unfortunately, some not so well-intentioned people without proper training. This led to the series of clerical paedophile abuse cases that have been blighting the news in recent times.