15th November 2011
I also wish to address the infrastructure and capital investment plan, which I believe needs to be debated in this House. In line with the questions put forward by Senator Bacik, I also wish to raise the question of St. Patrick’s Institution. As Senator Bacik has stated, the Government has committed in the programme for Government to end the practice of sending children to the aforementioned institution and has put forward the new national children’s detention facility on the Oberstown campus in Lusk as a solution to the unacceptable and untenable position that obtains at present. For example, in 2010, 221 children aged between 16 and 17 were committed to adult prisons, of whom 219 were boys who were committed to St. Patrick’s Institution. On average, that facility has 40 boys in detention.
In response to a Dáil question on 20 September last on the plans to proceed with the development of the first phase of the said project, the Minister of Justice and Equality stated the Office of Public Works was “in the process of preparing the required tender documentation for the project” and that the Government’s decision on funding, approval for which is required before tendering for the construction phase, would be informed by the outcome of the Government’s capital expenditure review. Unfortunately, when this review was published, it was silent on what would happen.
Therefore, given that development of the Oberstown project is now the responsibility of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, I ask that the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, come into the House to clarify the position, to outline her plans on how to proceed with the project as a matter of urgency, to confirm whether one can expect the project to be completed by mid-2013, as was the commitment given by the then Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in December 2009, and to address formally the concerns expressed by the Ombudsman for Children, Ms Emily Logan, in her press release this morning.