asked the Minister for Justice the date on which the initial decision was made to establish a detention centre at Loughan House, County Cavan.

17.

asked the Minister for Justice if he will reconsider his decision to open a detention centre for boys at Loughan House, County Cavan; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

18.

asked the Minister for Justice if he will place a specific time limit on the operation of the detention centre at Loughan House, County Cavan; and the long-term plans he has formulated to deal with the problems which will arise, if, and when Loughan House is phased out.

19.

asked the Minister for Justice the organisations that were consulted by him or by his advisers prior to the decision to establish a detention centre at Loughan House, County Cavan.

20.

asked the Minister for Justice if he has replied to the 11 organisations which made representations to him regarding the proposed detention centre at Loughan House, County Cavan; and the reason for the long delay in making a reply.

21.

asked the Minister for Justice what institutions exist in other countries similar to the proposed detention centre at Loughan House, County Cavan and the success rate of such institutions in rehabilitating offenders committed there.

22.

asked the Minister for Justice how many of the staff to be appointed to Loughan House, County Cavan, will have had experience of child care work in a residential setting; and if he has laid down any such conditions for staff appointments.

23.

asked the Minister for Justice the qualifications of the person or persons with overall responsibility for the training of staff who will work in Loughan House, County Cavan; and if they have qualifications or experience in relation to juveniles in a secure setting; and, if so, the qualifications and experience.

24.

asked the Minister for Justice if he will give details of the training course provided for staff of the proposed detention centre at Loughan House, County Cavan; and if he considered that a 12-week course provides adequate training for the enormous and sensitive work involved.

With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to answer questions numbers 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 together.

The decision to provide secure accommodation for the 12 to 16 age group was taken shortly after the Government took office. The decision to provide the accommodation at Loughan House was taken after a review of the options and it was not influenced by any pressure from anybody. I am not prepared to reconsider the decision. Incidentally some critics of the Loughan House project blame me for disregarding, as they put it, recommendations made in their reports by three Government-sponsored Committees, the Kennedy Report of 1970, the Henchy Report of 1974 and the Interim Report of the Task Force of 1975. This criticism, of course, ignores the fact that my decision does not in itself necessarily involve the acceptance or the rejection of any of those recommendations. Implementation or rejection of any of the relevant recommendations in the reports would not be a matter for me. Loughan House is an interim measure. In any case, these reports are not ad idem in regard to the type of accommodation needed for unruly boys so that acceptance of the recommendation in one report would preclude acceptance of that in another.

I do not consider that it would be right for me to disclose the identity of persons or organisations consulted by me in relation to the Loughan House project. Were I to do so, I would be exposing those concerned to pressure and annoyance from the people and the groups who are trying to impede the project. I am satisfied that I had appropriate and adequate advice.

I should like to stress the following points:

(i) Loughan House will be used for the 12 to 16 age group until such time as the new school now being planned by the Department of Education for Lusk, County Dublin, is brought into service and no longer than that. It is estimated that this will take about three years. Loughan House is in excellent condition and a wide range of amenities will be available in it and in the extensive grounds. I might add that there has been some misunderstanding in some people's minds in regard to the cost of converting Loughan House into a secure centre. The cost of those changes will be of the order of £135,000. The figure of £600,000 which has been the subject of criticism is made up of that £135,000 plus the cost of improvements and extensions to buildings and services which would have been needed in any case for the continued use of Loughan House as an open centre for the 16-to 21-year-olds.

(ii) Some critics of the Loughan House project appear to think that they have a compelling argument when they high-light the fact that the main staff body in Loughan will be prison officers. This is calculated to create the impression that Loughan will be a primitive fortress run on excessively severe lines. The reality, of course, is far different. The prison officers selected for Loughan House will have been specially trained in child care before they take up their jobs. The vast majority of child care workers, including most of those in the existing "special schools" at Finglas, Clonmel and Lusk, on work similar to that which the Loughan House staff will be undertaking, had no training whatsoever when they were appointed to their jobs. The Loughan House staff will continue to receive training after they take up their jobs. The staff-to-inmate ratio will be high enough to enable a full programme of constructive activities to be implemented. The discipline of the prison service is likely to be an advantage rather than a disadvantage for men and women who have to deal with difficult boys.

(iii) A full range of specialist services will be provided at Loughan by teachers, welfare officers, nurses, a psychologist and by visiting doctors and psychiatrists.

(iv) Help will be provided where relatives have difficulty in visiting boys in Loughan.

(v) Neither Loughan nor the planned school at Lusk nor any of the three existing "special schools" is intended for boys who have serious psychiatric problems. The Eastern Health Board is planning a home for them.

As regards what is called in one question the "overall responsibility" for the training of staff the position is, of course, that final responsibility for all aspects of the organisation rests on me as Minister for Justice. That apart, it would be a misconception to think of the training required for work in Loughan House as undifferentiated. The prison officers who will serve there will have received training courses devised with the help of various persons and bodies some within and some outside my Department, officers of which have, of course, considerable experience in relation to the custody of young persons from 15 years of age who are committed to custody by the courts. The training of the specialised staff, teachers, welfare officers, nurses, psychologist, chaplain and so on, will be that of their own professions.

The prison officers who will work in Loughan House will have had, in addition to their normal training course, a 12 weeks full-time, intensive course in child care—made up of six weeks of lectures, discussions, films, visits, project work tutorials and so on, and six weeks full-time placement in residential homes and special schools.

The course is designed to give the 95 participants an insight into the environment, the normal psychological development of children and some of the problems associated with deviant behaviour. The course also deals with the management of delinquent boys likely to be placed in residence in Loughan House. I believe that it can provide those who undergo it with a good preparation for the work they will be undertaking. Contributors include experts and practitioners in child care; educationalists in specialist fields; a range of experienced social workers; psychologists; psychiatrists—a total of 26 contributors including three experienced child-care workers who act as tutors.

Many countries have facilities for the secure custodial accommodation of boys under 16. I could not undertake to specify which ones are similar to Loughan House since, for one thing, that would be a matter of opinion depending on the individual features thought by an inquirer to be relevant. In any case I think it would be presumptuous of me to comment on institutions in other countries. For some time after the second World War it was fashionable among criminologists and penologists to explore the possibilities of rehabilitating offenders by means of regimes in custodial institutions which were treatment-orientated. Unfortunately that approach has not yielded any worth-while result and has been almost universally abandoned as, indeed, appears to be recognised now even by some organisations who a few years ago were very critical of what they alleged was the failure of our custodial institutions to rehabilitate offenders.

As to correspondence from organisations, on 14 April I received from the Taoiseach's office a letter dated 7 April 1978 addressed to the Taoiseach and which had as an enclosure a copy of a letter dated 7 March 1978 addressed to me on behalf of eleven organisations. The original of the letter of 7 March 1978 did not reach me or my Department. A reply has been issued. The suggestion that I have been unwilling to discuss the Loughan House project with interested bodies is without foundation. Discussions have taken place between a number of organisations and my Department. Some organisations, however, have chosen to attack my proposals first before seeking to discuss them. I have agreed to discussions even with some of those organisations.

With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle I propose to circulate with the Official Report a statement which was prepared in January and issued to persons who inquired about the Loughan House project. Following is the statement:

Interim residential accommodation for boys under 16 years of age at Loughan House, Blacklion, County Cavan.

In recent years the special schools under the aegis of the Department of Education have not been accepting juveniles who are behaviourally difficult. The continuing delinquency of juveniles in this category has contributed significantly to the rising incidence of crime and vandalism.

For some months past, a project team in the Department of Education has been planning for residential schools to accommodate boys and girls under 16 years of age whom the courts may find to need residential placement and who are not acceptable in the existing schools. The Department of Justice is represented on this project team, as is the Department of Health, and there is close liaison between the Departments in this matter. A site at Lusk, adjacent to the existing special school, has been obtained for a school for boys, details of the accommodation to be provided have been worked out and architects are now designing the buildings. The project team has taken into consideration the recommendations of the Interdepartmental Committee on Mentally Ill and Maladjusted Persons and of the Task Force on Child Care Services. The project team is also aware of accommodation and facilities being provided under the aegis of the Department of Health for emotionally and psychiatrically disturbed juveniles and of the range of non-residential services for juveniles at risk being provided under the auspices of each of the three Departments.

For the next two or three years and purely as a temporary arrangement until the Department of Education has provided adequate accommodation for boys who need residential placement, the Department of Justice will make Loughan House, Blacklion, Co. Cavan available to accommodate boys between the ages of 12 and 16 years, who because of their behavioural problems or their tendency to abscond are not currently acceptable in the existing special schools. Necessary adaptations are in hand and it is hoped to have Loughan House ready to accept boys of this category early this year.

Loughan House is a particularly fine modern building. Standards of furnishing, equipment, decoration and repair have been maintained at an extremely high level. It is scenically situated on over 40 acres of landscaped grounds. It has 46 furnished and centrally heated and spacious study-bedrooms, with hot and cold water installed in every room. They are designed for single occupancy but the rooms are sufficiently spacious to enable them to be used on a basis of multiple occupancy, if this is considered to be in the best interests of the boys. Apart from a chapel, dining-room, gymnasium and an equipped cinema/theatre, the building has games rooms and a range of classrooms. The grounds provide football pitches, a volley-ball court, a full scale pitch and putt course, and there are facilities for swimming, boating and fishing on the lake.

Because a propensity to abscond is one of the more recurring factors to be expected from the boys concerned and is indeed one of the more important considerations which contributed to their not being acceptable in the existing special schools, provision will need to be made for a closed perimeter. This perimetering will, however, leave extensive grounds readily accessible to the boys in residence and moreover it is being laid out in a way that will not interrupt the open prospect of the surrounding environment. The element of closure envisaged is the minimum necessary to ensure that the residential placement decided by the courts can be effected and availed of to enable the boys to benefit from a programme of personal development and resocialisation. In circumstances where residential placement is found to be the only course which holds out a prospect of control and reorientation, the presence of the boys concerned is a prerequisite to any attempt to achieve a desired improvement. It does not follow that because there is perimetering, a place is "closed" to an oppressive degree.

It is not possible, for a number of reasons, to forecast accurately the number of boys who will be accommodated at Loughan House. It is envisaged that at the appropriate stage of court proceedings, each boy will be assessed at the Finglas Children's Centre. That assessment will help the courts to decide whether any particular boy is to be residentially placed or not. If he is, it will need to be decided whether placement should be to one of the three existing special schools in Finglas, in Clonmel, or in Lusk, or whether placement is to be in Loughan House. The extent to which the existing special schools may exercise their option not to accept boys whom they consider to be problematic in terms of control and absconding could also affect the intake in Loughan House. Intake would also be influenced by the availability or otherwise of specialised, primarily health-orientated places under Department of Health auspices. The arrangements will be such as to enable boys who progress to a sufficient extent, to be transferred from Loughan House to the other special schools.

The majority of the staff for Loughan House will be officers of the prison service. They are recruited through open competitive examination conducted by the Civil Service Commission and the recruitment is by Selection Board procedure. The candidates who qualify receive several weeks full-time induction training on their duties. Among those duties, for several years past, has been the staffing of open and specialised places of custody. The service has had a very rewarding experience in this field and is encouraged by that experience to be confident about its efforts on behalf of the under-16 age group during the next few years.

In addition to the conventional training, the officers selected to staff Loughan House will receive a full-time course of twelve weeks' duration related to the development, problems, needs, care and control of the juveniles for whom they will have responsibility. This training has already commenced. Furthermore, arrangements are under discussion for ongoing training of staff to extend over the next two or three years.

The plan is that the juveniles in Loughan House will receive full-time education. The programme is being designed to meet general, compensatory and remedial needs as well as practical subjects, social skills and leisure-time activities. This Department is liaising with the Department of Education and other educational authorities both in regard to the design of a suitable educational programme and in regard to the educational staff which such a programme will require.

In addition to the staff already mentioned, there will be provision for chaplaincy, medical and nursing care, a social work input by the welfare service of the Department of Justice and a psychological and psychiatric service, which is currently being discussed with the appropriate health authorities. Every endeavour will also be made to ensure that there is an adequate feminine presence on the staff. There will be a very generous ratio of staff to boys. There will also be financially assisted travelling arrangements for visitors.

I should like to challenge the Minister's statement that those who sought to discuss the question of Loughan House with him and those who criticised him did not offer themselves to discuss the matter. What is the purpose of a meeting of which we read in today's papers of selected groups, selected by him, to meet him next Thursday if he has already made up his mind on all aspects of this matter? Would it not be proper for him to cease any further work on the preparation of Loughan House until he has had a discussion with the interested groups, people who have put so much work into this kind of activity?

I have told the House that the decision is not to be reversed. I said that I did meet a number of people prior to this project going ahead. There are a number of others that I propose to meet and there are some that I do not propose to meet. I think the House and the Deputy will know that it has always been the practice that Ministers can determine whom they want to meet and will meet.