I have asked the Attorney General for advice relating to the committal warrant in question. In the circumstances it would be inappropriate to comment further on this case.
The rules applying to juvenile offenders are complex and I hope Deputies bear with me while I explain them. It would not be possible to provide the Deputy with an adequate answer to her question without explaining the committal options available.
Male offenders aged 16 and 17 and up to the age of 21 may be committed on remand to or to serve a period of detention in St. Patrick's Institution. Male offenders aged 17 and over may be committed on remand or sentenced to imprisonment to the four adult committal prisons, Mountjoy, Cork, Limerick and Portlaoise. Sentenced male offenders aged 16 and 17 may be transferred from any of the four adult committal prisons and from St. Patrick's Institution to Wheatfield Place of Detention, Fort Mitchel and Shanganagh Castle to serve their sentences.
Wheatfield and Fort Mitchel provide a more suitable environment for young offenders sentenced to imprisonment or detention. The age structure of the population at Wheatfield and Fort Mitchel is relatively young and the regimes place greater emphasis on education and work training for young offenders than the regimes in the adult prisons. Shanganagh Castle is an open centre reserved exclusively for male offenders aged between 16 and 21.
Female offenders aged 17 and over may be committed on remand or sentenced to imprisonment to Mountjoy and Limerick Women's Prisons. However, very few female offenders aged 17 are committed to penal institutions each year. At present there are no female offenders aged 17 in custody in Mountjoy or Limerick Prisons.
Offenders under the age of 15 cannot be committed to a prison under any circumstances. Fifteen year old male offenders and 15 and 16 year old female offenders can be committed to prison only in exceptional circumstances. This can occur only in cases where the court certifies under the provisions of sections 97 and 102 of the Children Act, 1908, that the young person is so unruly or depraved of character that he or she cannot be detained in a place of detention provided under Part V of the Act.
Additional Information.
The legal provisions for the committal of young offenders under the age of 18 will change on enactment of the Children Bill, 1996. The Bill proposes that, where a court imposes a period of detention on a child, it shall order the child to be detained in a children's detention school operated by the Department of Education and Science where the child is under 16 years of age, or to be detained in a place of detention provided by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform where the child is 16 or 17 years of age.
When a child who was under 16 when they were committed on indictment reaches 18, the chief executive of the children detention schools can apply to the court to have the child transferred to a place of detention provided by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Such application has to set out the reasons for it and to justify it. Otherwise the court may refuse to make the order resulting in the child remaining in the children detention school until he or she reached 18. At that stage, if the sentence was not fully served, as in a murder case, the child would then transfer to a place of detention operated by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. A child convicted of murder will be liable to the same penalty as an adult, that is, life imprisonment.
