asked the Minister for Education if his attention has been drawn to a statement from a member of the National Youth Council to the effect that there are many children wandering on streets in the Dublin area who are a danger to themselves and to the community; and if he will make a statement and outline the steps he proposes to take in the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Wandering Children.
83.
I have seen the statement referred to, which dealt specifically with the need for secure provision for violent or unruly offenders in the 14 to 16 year age group.
The special school at Oberstown, County Dublin now being phased into operation, will provide accommodation for 60 boy offenders in this age group. The Kennedy Report recommended that this school should be on "open" lines, with a closed wing for difficult cases. However, the order conducting the school does not feel it appropriate that it should administer a closed unit. It takes the view that to admit the more disruptive boy would defeat the purpose of the school, in that it would wreck the therapeutic programme for the rehabilitation of the more amenable boys.
It is clear that secure provision is necessary for certain boys who cannot be adequately catered for in open schools. Such provision will take a number of different forms, related to the needs of the boys. Some with psychotic or neurotic disorders will require care in the type of psychiatric environment recommended in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Mental Illness. Other children, who are mentally handicapped, will need to be provided for in a special unit associated with a residential centre for the mentally handicapped, as recommended in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Mental Handicap. A small number will simply need a secure centre in which the type of educational and care therapy being developed in Oberstown can be carried on without interruptions.
A somewhat similar situation exists in the case of girl offenders, but the numbers involved are much smaller.
As I indicated in my supplementary reply to the Deputy's question of 11th February, a capital programme has been approved for the progressive expansion of assessment and treatment facilities which come within the ambit of my Department's responsibility. These will include an element of secure provision. I am aware that plans are also in hand for the expansion of facilities which are the responsibility of the Minister for Health.
I thank the Minister for the very comprehensive reply which is much better than the reply we got the last day. Might I ask the Minister when will the new school be ready?
The new school? I have explained to the Deputy that there are a series of different problems requiring different solutions. The difficulty here is the complexity of it. You have the problem of the facilities required for boys who have psychotic or neurotic disorders, the problem of the mentally handicapped, the problem of those who are not handicapped in any way but who require to be in secure care. Then you have the same problems on a smaller scale for girls. Therefore, there is not a simple answer that a school will be ready on a certain date. These are problems which, with respect, this Government have inherited, ones which are proving extremely intractable. I can assure the House that the Minister and the Government are aware of the seriousness of the problems that exist here and of the need to find solutions to each of these problems as rapidly as possible.
I think my expression of thanks was premature in the light of that reply. I am asking the Minister what are the Government doing about the young itinerant children who are sleeping rough in our streets at night. Is the Minister also aware that in regard to a reply given to me in February an organisation called CARE stated that the Government had given me misleading information? I find the Government's indifference to this problem of children on the streets of Dublin appalling. I am asking the Minister, who represents the same area with me, what is he going to do to try to find accommodation for children who are put back on the streets by the courts, who say there is nowhere to keep them? I do not want a long-term view of what is going to happen. I want to know what is going to happen tomorrow or this evening. There are 100 children sleeping rough in the streets of this city. I know there are lots of problems.
The itinerant children to whom the Deputy refers may not belong to one group in the sense of needing one kind of solution but the question of trying to find a solution to the more urgent problems is under active consideration. A meeting was held in the Department in the last few days with the aim of trying to find at least an emergency solution to the major part of the problem to which the Deputy has rightly directed the attention of the House.
The Minister states there are various aspects of the problem of these boys and girls, but there is one thing common to them all: they need somewhere to sleep at night. Our courts are releasing them on bail and saying: "Sorry, we have nowhere to keep you". This is a pressing problem of boys and girls who have no homes.
I take it the Deputy is not saying the perfect should be the enemy of the good, and that even if we cannot get the right answer immediately to each group we should at least attempt to find an answer to the major part of the problem, even of an interim and not totally satisfactory character. This is certainly the Minister's view, and I shall convey the Deputy's concern to him, because it is a problem which is very urgent.
He will tell the Minister he cannot screw the money out of the Minister for Finance. He said it on the "Late, Late Show".
I do not think the Deputy and I are talking about the same thing.