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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 22 Jul 1975

Vol. 284 No. 1

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Juvenile Offenders.

38.

asked the Minister for Justice the number of children who appeared before the Dublin Metropolitan Children's Court in 1974 charged with criminal offences.

39.

asked the Minister for Justice the number of criminal charges brought against children tried in 1974 at the Dublin Metropolitan Children's Court.

40.

asked the Minister for Justice the number of criminal charges for which children were legally represented in the Dublin Metropolitan Children's Court in 1974.

41.

asked the Minister for Justice the number of criminal offences for which children were tried in the Dublin Metropolitan Children's Court in 1974 for which applications for legal aid under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Act, 1962 were made.

42.

asked the Minister for Justice the number of criminal offences for which children were tried in 1974 in the Dublin Metropolitan Children's Court for which applications for legal aid under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Act, 1962 were granted.

43.

asked the Minister for Justice the number of children who appeared before courts outside the Dublin Metropolitan Area in 1974 charged with criminal offences.

44.

asked the Minister for Justice the number of criminal charges brought against children which were tried in court outside the Dublin Metropolitan Area in 1974.

45.

asked the Minister for Justice the number of criminal charges against children which were heard in court outside the Dublin Metropolitan Area in 1974 for which children were legally represented.

46.

asked the Minister for Justice the number of criminal offences for which children were tried in court outside the Dublin Metropolitan Area in 1974 for which applications for legal aid under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Act, 1962 were made.

47.

asked the Minister for justice the number of criminal offences for which children were tried in court outside the Dublin Metropolitan Area in 1974 for which applications for legal aid under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Act, 1962, were granted.

With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle I propose to take Questions Nos. 38 to 47 together.

Statistics relating to children's cases are available only in respect of the Children's Court in Dublin which deals exclusively with such cases and has its own separate office. The figures show the number of alleged offences that are prosecuted in, but not the number of persons who appeared before, that Court.

The number of alleged offences so prosecuted in 1974 was 21,906. This figure includes cases involving adults charged jointly with children and adults summoned in respect of school attendance offences. A breakdown of the figure to show the number of alleged offences involving only children is not available but it may be taken that such cases represented the great majority of the total.

While the precise number of children that appeared before the Court in Dublin is not known, it is estimated that each child so appearing was on average prosecuted for three or four alleged offences and, on that basis, the number of children that appeared in 1974 was probably between 5,000 and 7,000.

Elsewhere throughout the country, children's cases are handled by court offices as part of the general business of the District Court and separate statistics relating to such cases are not kept.

No statistical records are kept of persons who are legally represented before the courts. Five hundred and forty-five applications were made to the Children's Court in Dublin in 1974 for legal aid under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Act, 1962, and 522 applications were granted. The available statistics do not show the number of alleged offences to which these applications related.

Is there not a special children's court in Cork in so far as a circuit court day is set aside?

That is the practice in the busier provincial areas. I do not call Cork a provincial town but, outside Dublin in the busier areas, time is sometimes set aside to deal specially with children's cases. Statistics are not compiled separately. In regard to areas such as Cork or some of the larger provincial areas, it would be possible to extract separate statistics for children because of this administrative arrangement, but they are not kept separately.

Is it still the practice that when children are remanded they are allowed loose on the streets because there is no home for them to go to? Have any steps been taken to remedy this situation?

It is not the practice. It happens in the case of some children who are classified as unruly that the homes to which they would normally be sent refuse to take them. The question of providing a custodial institution that will have no option but to take such unruly children is under examination by a task force, under the Tanaiste's Department, which was set up to consider the whole area of children in conflict with the law and resolve the anomalies of the present situation.

The position is that a child could be remanded today and let loose on the streets because there is nowhere for him to go. Is not that right?

I am aware of that difficulty. As I have said to the Deputy, the matter is being examined by this task force which was set up to deal with that anomaly amongst other anomalies and other unsatisfactory features of the position in regard to children and the law.

Is this matter the direct responsibility of the Department of Health or of the Department of Justice and the Department of Education?

The matter to which Deputy Moore referred is the direct responsibility, as of now, of the Department of Education. This division of responsibility is one of the difficulties which has bedevilled this whole area of children and the law. The child comes before a court, which is part of my responsibility. He is remanded to an area which is the responsibility of the Department of Education. He may, perhaps, be suffering from some ailment which would concern the Department of Health. In accordance with the Kennedy Report, which recommended some sort of unified structure to deal with these problems, this task force has been set up under the Tanaiste's Department to seek solutions to those problems.

Is it intended to coordinate the efforts of the three Departments to deal with this problem?

I expect that the task force will recommend some system whereby there will be a unified or co-ordinated approach. I cannot anticipate what they will recommend.

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