I appreciate the opportunity of raising this tonight. I thank the Minister for the time he is giving to deal with it.
St. Michael's assessment centre has been in Finglas for about 20 years. The unit takes children who are in serious trouble through delinquency or for other reasons, assesses them over a three week period, plans a future for them and makes recommendations for them. It is not a prison and it is not secure unit. It is staffed by people from a wide variety of disciplines, such as psychologists, teachers and care workers. There is an element of control in the sense that they have to control the behaviour of these people, but its main function is that of assessment. Over that three week period, there must be an emphasis on positive encouragement and co-operation with the boy being assessed and with his family. Each boy gets a real chance, probably the only chance he will ever get in calm circumstances to speak, to be spoken and listened to and to have his problems professionally investigated and assessed. That is what takes place during the course of their time there.
Under the Children's Act of 1908 the assessment unit had to be registered with the Minister for Justice as a place of detention, because there is a certain element of detention there. This allowed the courts to send boys there for purposes other than assessment. At that stage boys were referred from either the health boards or the courts. The courts also began more than ten years ago to refer to the centre tough children who were charged with serious offences and who the courts were not prepared to allow out on bail. This was done on the basis that the centre is registered with the Department of Justice and that therefore there would be control there.
Into this caring atmosphere, where assessment should be taking place and where children for the first time in their lives have been given a chance, we send these tough youngsters whom the courts will not allow out on bail. The whole process of the assessment of the other children is completely jeopardised and disrupted, as is the administration of the unit. Staff who are there to carry out assessment must now be reassigned to control children who are there on remand; consequently, they are not doing the job they want to do with the children who are there for assessment. This is not working, and it has been going on for nearly 20 years.
In 1973 or 1974 the then Minister for Education, Mr. Paddy Cooney, visited the centre and made it clear that he could not at all condone what was going on and that it should be changed. The centre is run by the De La Salle Order and they have experience in this area. They have the confidence of the authorities and of the people who work there, many of whom are teachers and members of my union whom I know very well and they speak in the highest terms of them.
To give the Minister an idea of what is happening, I asked the staff to give me examples of the kind of thing that goes on. They gave me two examples and I would like to put them on the record because I found them quite frightening. One child was returned to the court following his assessment and the court sent him back to the centre. He was undermining the staff and encouraging other boys who were there for assessment to confront the staff. His attempts at breaking his way out of the unit necessitated the redeployment of a large number of staff to look after this one boy. To prevent the situation from spiralling out of control he was taken back to court and, in spite of their advice to the contrary, the court again insisted on sending him back to the assessment unit.
After a few days there he absconded, but they brought him back again. He threw a tantrum and became wildly abusive and aggressive to the night staff. He became agitated, the situation became very volatile, the Garda had to be called and assistance was requested. He settled down, he went wild again, the Garda had to be called back and they were there overnight. Other secure units and detention units would have the space and resources to cope with that, but this is like a school. It should be a safe place, a place where things are calmed down. The children in there for assessment are just losing out completely on that. There is utter frustration.
A second example the staff gave me is even worse. After a week a child came back, he was kicking furniture over and ripping up his own and other boys' clothes. He brought a pool ball around with him and Members can imagine the danger of that. He was trying to bang his head on the wall — this is a common thing — he had cigarettes and lighters in the room at night and there was a very worrying sexual element to his behaviour. In the opinion of the staff, and they have a great deal of experience in dealing with things like this, the sexual content of his language was the crudest and most vulgar they had ever heard. He had an intimidating effect on the younger kids, some of whom would not even be 12 years of age.
These are hardened older teenagers. Even in ordinary neighbourhoods those of us with children are very careful that they mix with children of their own age. Letting them mix with children of their own age who are on remand because they are too tough to be let run loose, who are awkward and delinquent in the first place, has a thoroughly detrimental effect on the young children. This other child held the head of a younger 12-year-old under the water in the swimming pool for long periods before he was stopped.
The situation there is fraught. I am trying to give the impression to the Minister of a number of different things happening at the same time. The children referred there for assessment are not being assessed. The staff are not able to do the work they are there to do. The children who are on remand are not under the kind of control which they should be under on remand, and the school authorities, the De La Salle Order, are frustrated in what they are trying to do. After 20 years of trying to get the law changed so that children on remand cannot be sent to this unit, they have now offered their resignation. They can no longer stand over their work, they are afraid of something serious happening and they feel they are not doing their job correctly. They have now offered their resignation as and from the end of this school year, which is a tragedy for the operation of the centre. Speaking as a trade union general secretary, very often we are happy to see Orders moving out of positions like this because it means a good job for one of our own members. However, our members in this school have asked me to persuade the Minister to try to retain the Order in the school.
I ask that the legislation be changed to allow the separation of remand delinquents from children who are in there for assessment so that the two categories could not mix, because they do not mix. A recent report on special education recommended that a review body be set up to look at the operation of centres like this. I would ask the Minister to establish such a review body immediately to include professional staff in the school who would examine the situation and make recommendations to the Minister for implementation. I would ask the Minister, on behalf of all of us who know what is going on in the centre and know how it works, to make every possible attempt to persuade the De La Salle Order, who have such long experience in this area, to continue to work in it and control it.
