Deputy Pat McCartan has been given permission to raise the need to establish a secure therapeutic unit for young offenders to avoid courts having to sentence juveniles to adult prisons.
Adjournment Debate. - Therapeutic Treatment Facilities for Young Offenders.
I would like to share my time with Deputy Jim O'Keeffe, with the agreement of the House.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
The problem of the absence of a proper therapeutic centre for the detention and treatment of young offenders has been well known to those familiar with the courts and the problems of juvenile crime, but it has been brought to the attention of the public in a very dramatic way by the much publicised case involving two 15 year old Dublin girls. These two girls were last week sentenced to Mountjoy adult prison for periods of 18 months and 12 months, respectively. From information supplied to Deputy Sherlock, by the Minister for Justice today, 21 persons aged 15 years have been committed to adult prisons in 1990 alone. That shows that this is a major problem.
I want to say first, I acknowledge that these two girls to which I have referred were serious and persistent offenders, and that the public have a right to be protected against the sort of unacceptable activities in which they were involved. Having said that, I must also say that I consider the practice of sending juvenile offenders, who are still legally recognised as children, to an adult jail to be a deplorable and damning indictment of the Government's neglect of the problem of juvenile crime. The failure of the Government to provide a therapeutic unit for young offenders is placing the courts in an impossible position. Every week courts face the dilemma of releasing habitual young offenders on to the streets or locking them away in adult prisons.
It is appalling that we continue to rely on an Act of 1908 to deal with young offenders and which provides for the courts certifying children as "depraved". It is not the children who are depraved but a Government who agree to lock up such children in adult prisons. While the Taoiseach was prepared to fly, at public expense, to New York to sign the United Nations Convention on Children, his Government continued to tolerate the detention in adult jails and Garda stations of those who were still legally classified as children. The appalling attempts by the Ministers for Justice, Education and Health to blame each other is one of the most outrageous episodes of buck-passing in Irish political history.
The need for appropriate centres for caring for young offenders has been highlighted by professional organisations working in the area and in a whole succession of reports. Almost 20 years ago the Kennedy Report recommended the provision of secure centres, but two decades later all our "caring" society can offer is the Bridewell or release on the streets. The Government must ensure that an emergency allocation is provided to fund the opening of adequate secure centres for young offenders. The number of places required would probably be around 20 for girl offenders, with a similar number of places for boys.
The early detection and treatment of young offenders is essential if we are to reduce the overall level of juvenile crime. The Garda juvenile liaison officer scheme has done excellent work, but it too is being starved of resources. The number of young offenders handled under the scheme reduced from 3,700 in 1987 to 2,700 in 1989. The worst possible approach with young offenders is to lock them up in an adult prison with hardened criminals. This practice will rob the children involved of any chance at rehabilitation and will greatly increase the chances of them spending the rest of their life in crime. The scandal cannot be allowed to go on.
It is a coincidence that we are discussing this issue following the earlier discussion of a suicide of a 16 year old boy in our prisons. I believe in the principle that we should cherish all the children of the nation equally and that is not the case when we have to send them to adult prisons.
I appreciate Deputy McCartan's courtesy in allowing me a moment to speak on this issue and I fully support what he said. We must take action now in the context of the Juvenile Justice Bill, of putting the juvenile liaison office scheme on a statutory basis and of having adequate funding for that scheme so that when officers are needed at weekends they can go on duty, which they are not permitted to do at the moment.
The Departments of Health, Education and Justice must stop passing the buck and implement a positive policy in relation to these issues. It is ludicrous that young children are locked up in adult prisons, indeed district justices all over the country have been complaining about this for a long time. How long more will we have to put up with this insensitive non-reaction of the Government? We demand that the Government take action forthwith.
I am pleased to be here on behalf of the Minister for Education to respond to this debate and I thank Deputies McCartan and O'Keeffe for their contributions. The increasing frequency with which young offenders appear before our courts on serious charges which attract custodial sentences is, of course, a matter of serious concern. Indeed, it was in response to this development and the resulting need to provide adequate and suitable places to accommodate such cases that the Government decided to establish an interdepartmental group to consider ways of addressing this problem. One of the recommendations to come from that group was that additional accommodation should be provided for boys and girls to supplement existing facilities. The Government have taken urgent action to follow up this recommendation and arrangements are currently being made to bring new facilities on stream for boys and girls. A new residential school, to house 20 young girl offenders, is being planned for location adjacent to the existing Finglas children's centre. This school will take up to eight girls on remand for assessment and provide long term accommodation for a further 12 girls. A special project team are nearing the completion of their work on preparing the necessary schedule of accommodation which is an essential prerequisite to appointing consultants for the project in going to tender. It will be appreciated that the nature and purpose of this new school will require very careful planning at all stages to ensure that the best interests of the inhabitants are served while, at the same time, ensuring that the special nature of the school is not undermined.
Because the new purpose built school for girls will not be available for some time, the Minister for Education has instructed her Department to look urgently at the possibility of providing a temporary arrangement to cope with the current demand for places for girls.
In the case of young male offenders, arrangements are already well advanced for the refurbishment of a major part of the former Scoil Ard Mhuire in Lusk with a view to providing an additional 40 places. Work on this project is expected to commence on site before Christmas with a view to bringing facilities on stream on a phased basis over succeeding months. An initial unit to house eight to ten boys is expected to be completed by March next year with the refurbishment work being completed by the end of May 1991.
These actions — the fact that we are on Report Stage of the Child Care Bill and that the Minister for Justice has introduced another Children's Bill to the House — shows the commitment of the Government and the various Ministers to this issue. I have outlined the measures we are taking and the urgency with which they are being pursued is a concrete illustration of the commitment of the Ministers in Cabinet and the Government in addressing these very difficult issues. I take exception to Deputy McCartan's flippant remark about the Taoiseach going to sign the United Nations Children's Charter at public expense. He did his duty on behalf of this country. We are a member of the United Nations and our action was a response and commitment to that Charter. Apparently Deputy McCartan expects the Taoiseach to discharge his duties on behalf of the country at his own personal expense.
There is a lot of work to be done at home first.
I am sure that, if Deputy McCartan got an opportunity to leave the country to serve his party's interests at public expense, he would not take it.