asked the Minister for Education if she will have arrangements made to investigate the circumstances on Monday 22 November, 1993 at 6.30 p.m., whereby a young offender aged 14 to 15 years, sentenced to one month's detention in Trinity House, Lusk, County Dublin, was abandoned in the car park by gardaí in view of the fact that there was no room for him at Trinity House, and as a result of this he had to find his own way home to Dublin city.
Private Notice Questions. - Alleged Abandonment of Young Offender.
asked the Minister for Education the proposals, if any, she has regarding a situation where a young boy is alleged to have been abandoned by gardaí, in view of the fact that they could not obtain suitable accommodation for him at Trinity House; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
I thank Deputies for quickly bringing to my attention this incident which concerns not only me but Deputies involved and other Ministers. I am having the circumstances investigated and will then communicate with the Deputies as soon as possible. I am concerned that it has now become apparent that there was a place for the young offender in Oberstown House which is not a million miles from Trinity House. Unfortunately, the judge did not request accommodation there. I am having the matter investigated from the Trinity House angle and I have discussed the matter with the Minister for Justice as we must inquire as to why this happened.
The Minister is answerable to this House and I do not want private briefings about something like this. Is the Minister aware that at 4.15 p.m. yesterday the gardaí in question were told by the staff in Trinity House that they could not accommodate this young offender, yet they arrived with the young boy at 6.30 p.m. in order to serve their warrant and then left him in the car park? Is she also aware that it was only due to the care and concern of local people to whom the boy called that he was lent £2.50 to take the bus back to the city where he lived? Has the Minister already taken up with her colleague, the Minister for Justice, the conduct of gardaí in abandoning a young man like this on what was probably the coldest evening of the year? Nobody seemed to care what would happen to him. He might have committed another offence while he was already on remand. Will the Minister agree that this is not the way to run Trinity House or the courts of the land?
The court was informed that Trinity House was full, nonetheless the judge decided to sentence this boy to one month in Trinity House. He was brought there by the Garda.
The Garda were told that it was full.
The court was told. It is a very serious matter. I do not intend to conduct any series of private briefings. Because of the seriousness of what happened to that child on a cold night I have to have the matter investigated. I have already spoken to the Minister for Justice about it. I owe it to Deputy Owen as a concerned Deputy and other Deputies in this House to come back and tell Deputies the result of my inquiries.
What kind of blind unco-ordinated system have we when judges decide on custodial sentences or place people on remand without checking whether places are available? In this case we are talking about Trinity House.
A supplementary question, please.
Is this not a clear abdication of duty by the Minister? Is it not the Minister's responsibility as Minister for Education to make sure sufficient places are available and people remanded in custody will not be turned out on the road? Has this not happened before? Is the Minister aware that three years ago a juvenile ended up in the women's section of Mountjoy because there were not enough places available? There has been more than adequate notice of the lack of provision in this regard.
I have already told the Deputy that a place was available. The unfortunate point is that while the court was told that Trinity House was full, if an application had been made by the judge, who sits without interference from the Minister for Education, for a place in Oberstown boys' centre, which is adjacent to Trinity House, there is no reason this boy should have been left wandering. I take seriously my responsibility in relation to the need for places. When answering questions last week Opposition Deputies objected to the amount of information which I was prepared to give, when I gave a lengthy reply on the number of and need for places. There was a place in Oberstown next door to Trinity House. I have undertaken to have this serious matter investigated and I will come back to Deputies when investigations are completed.
Will the Minister tell the House why she does not have an explanation for the House this afternoon? If this was her son or my son, we would want to know by now why he had been abandoned in a car park. Is the Minister aware that 31 per cent of all persons in custody are juveniles under the age of 16 and that one in six of these is under 14, that there is no plan to deal with the detention of offenders of this age and that far from being a rehabilitative system, people are learning in the system to become hardened criminals? When will the Minister introduce a plan to deal with the revolving door syndrome which applies in these places of detention and with the need to introduce a rehabilitative system?
I would refer Deputy Mitchell who was in this House during Question Time when I was subjected to abuse for the length of my replies——
Answer the question.
I have a plan and the information is available to the Deputy in the Official Report. It was available to the Deputy last Wednesday. This matter is not a game and I take my obligation seriously. I had information in this House last Wednesday on the places for juvenile offenders and I will make it available to the Deputy again.
Would the Minister not agree that this case illustrates yet again that there is a crisis in child care? After the Kilkenny case we discussed the need for the further development of child care services, yet last week I had to raise on the Adjournment the case of a nine-year-old child for whom suitable facilities were not made available. We signed the UN Convention earlier this year and we will be reporting to the UN monitoring committee in August next. What are the Minister's plans to co-ordinate the services for those children? The Ministers for Health, Education and Justice need to co-ordinate a plan so that services are available for children who need special resources or detention places. The Minister's reply on the Adjournment last week did not answer that question.
We should note that £5 million has been spent in the area of child care since the publication of the Kilkenny report. This is a matter of concern, nobody can say the position is satisfactory, but funding is being made available, the health boards have responsibility in this area and are being asked to co-ordinate the existing systems. Three Departments are involved in dealing with the problem, the Departments of Education and Health and the Department of Equality and Law Reform also have a role to play.
While endorsing the points made by my colleagues in relation to the plight of the boy left in the car park last night, will the Minister also examine the plight of the residents of that area having regard to the fact that the lady at whose house the young man called would have been terrified except for the fact that a neighbour was visiting her as she lives alone. The residents living in close proximity to Trinity House and Oberstown House are terrified of breakouts from those detention centres. In the Minister's report will she examine the aspect of security in those places of detention?
I am concerned about the accommodation in Trinity House and in Oberstown House and the safety of children placed there by the courts.
What about the residents of the area?
Is there an adequate system of communications between the courts, the Garda and the special schools under the aegis of her Department? If not, what Minister is responsible for ensuring that such a system exists?
I referred already to the independence of the Judiciary. In the preliminary inquiries I made in regard to this serious case I am satisfied that the judge in question was told accommodation was not available. Perhaps it is a matter of communications difficulties.
Who has responsibility for that?
Information made available in this House, at Question Time or otherwise, about available accommodation for children should be communicated to all concerned.
That concludes Question Time.
Will the Minister report back to the House or to me personally?