Latest news with #DepartmentOfChildren
Irish Times
19-06-2025
- Irish Times
Five Oberstown staff required hospital treatment following recent incidents
Nine staff at Oberstown Children Detention Campus were injured in an incident involving one young person on Wednesday, the trade union Forsa has said. The incident, during which improvised weapons were used, resulted in four staff being brought to hospital and a number being signed off work for up to a month. It comes as it emerged at the weekend that two young people, accused of being armed with a machine gun during a robbery in South Dublin, were freed due to lack of space at the State's main youth detention centre. On Tuesday, the Department of Children , which oversees Oberstown's operations, said it planned to increase capacity. READ MORE It would 'put in place the necessary resources to enable a small number of additional places to be made available in the near future'. Oberstown currently has capacity for 40 boys and six girls, and is accommodating 40 boys and one girl. Wednesday's violence was the third such incident since Sunday, June 8th, said a staff member who spoke to The Irish Times on condition of anonymity. These had left five people requiring hospital treatment. 'The most serious incident happened Wednesday last week in a remand unit on the campus. During an attempt to move a young person who had previously assaulted a member of staff, a residential social care worker had their face sliced open. They required immediate emergency hospitalisation,' he said. Forsa said there was 'a growing crisis in workplace safety' at the facility. Senior management was 'failing in their duty of care' to staff and this was exacerbating a crisis in staff recruitment and retention, it said. 'Just two out of 10 staff recruited at the start of the year remain,' said the union. [ 'It's not a prison': Inside Oberstown child detention campus Opens in new window ] The staff member said an increasing focus from management on the 'care' of the young people had resulted in inadequate attention to the 'safety'. The complexity of the young people's needs was increasing and the crimes for which they were sentenced more violent. 'The young people used to be coming in for robberies, robbing cars. Now it's all murder, attempted murder, rape, sexual assault. 'We have young people testing positive for crack, cocaine, multiple drugs.' The young people as well as staff were affected by the violence, he added. 'You have young people we have built huge relationships with, and then they see someone walk past, their head covered in blood, and we're meant to just move on. The system is normalising this. 'Staff are stressed, injured, burnt out.' Forsa said staff reiterated their call for 'more effective restraint techniques and the provision of appropriate personal protective equipment. 'Repeated warnings to senior management, about the risks facing staff, have been consistently ignored,' he said. 'Management's failure to recognise and address ongoing problems can no longer be ignored: we are witnessing a complete failure to uphold basic health and safety obligations. Our members are being placed in harm's way every day with no adequate response or accountability.' A Hiqa report last year found the 38 young people then present were having to stay in their bedrooms for periods to facilitate breaks due to insufficient staff. It found the young people on-site generally received 'good-quality, child-centred care'. Both Oberstown management and the Department of Children have been contacted for comment.
Irish Times
17-06-2025
- Irish Times
Capacity at Oberstown Child Detention Campus to be slightly extended
A 'small number' of additional places are to be created at the Oberstown Child Detention Campus in Dublin, which has been operating 'at or near capacity' for months, officials have said. It emerged this week that a lack of space at the State's main youth detention centre resulted in two Dublin teenagers, who are accused of being armed with a machine gun during a burglary, being freed at the weekend . The maximum occupancy at Oberstown, set by the Minister for Children, is currently 46 – made up of 40 boys and six girls. One of the boys who was released on Saturday night failed to attend his subsequent court hearing on Monday and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. READ MORE The two 17-year-olds and two men had been refused bail on Saturday after a judge heard a 60-year-old man was allegedly 'savagely' beaten in front of his terrified family when armed intruders forced entry into their home in Shankill, Co Dublin, on June 11th. All four were charged with aggravated burglary and unlawful possession of a Skorpion machine pistol. However, Oberstown had no room to take the two 17-year-olds, despite the judge's decision. In a statement on Tuesday, the Department of Children said it 'monitors occupancy rates in Oberstown Children Detention Campus closely and is aware that the campus has been operating at or near capacity in recent months'. 'In light of this the department is working with Oberstown to put in place the necessary resources to enable a small number of additional places to be made available in the near future. The department is also carrying out a research assessment to determine future demand for Oberstown services over the longer term,' it said. Minister for Children Norma Foley recently met Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan , it said, with both committed to 'ensuring the underpinning of appropriate sentencing policy for children both in terms of detention and community sanctions'. This includes children serving sentences of detention and children who have been remanded by the courts. The department pointed out that because the maximum occupancy is set by the Minister, 'overcrowding does not occur at Oberstown'.
Irish Times
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Concern that buildings developed as creches are being sold as residential homes
Planning guidelines will have to be updated to stop the 'very serious issue' of buildings intended as new childcare facilities being sold off by developers as residential homes. Minister for Children Norma Foley said she is working with Minister for Housing James Browne to try to update planning regulations that are 'not working the way they should be working'. Under the current rules, each development of 75 new homes needs to include a childcare facility with places for at least 20 children. But anecdotal evidence and a spate of 'change of use' planning applications from developers reveal that in some cases buildings ostensibly developed as 'creches' are being designed and built with the true intention of selling them as residential homes. This means that buildings intended to provide much-needed childcare facilities are either sitting empty for years or being sold as expensive new builds after the developer successfully applies for a change of use to housing. READ MORE It is understood Ms Foley has already been meeting officials in local authorities to discuss the issue. There is a belief within the Department of Children that different local authorities are applying planning rules in different ways. At the first meeting of the Oireachtas committee on Children and Equality on Thursday, Ms Foley said she was now working with the Department of Housing to 'update' planning laws to increase supply of childcare places. 'I believe that there are significant challenges around the planning guidelines,' Ms Foley said. 'I know myself of instances where there are facilities that were built, that were never used for the purpose for which they were built in terms of [a] childcare facility, and then eventually some of them became a change of use, and something else went in there that's not acceptable.' Ms Foley also suggested that planning guidelines could help ease the issues with national supply of childcare places. 'I think that's a very serious issue around the planning guidelines. I think they're not working the way they should be working,' she said. 'And I think we would be surprised what that might bring on stream when we manage with the Minister for Housing to revisit all of that, because it is a shame that we do have those facilities and they are not being used for [childcare].' According to Emer Currie , Fine Gael TD for Dublin West and party spokeswoman on childcare, said there were a number of examples in her constituency alone of much-needed childcare facilities either lying empty or being sold as homes. Ms Currie highlighted one estate where two three-storey homes intended to be childcare facilities when they were built in 2014 'lay idle for years'. The developer applied four times between 2017 and 2023 for a change of use to housing. Ms Currie explained that the units, which were advertised for sale as a creche, 'were built in the same style as houses'. 'Both have now been sold as housing,' she said. In the Barnwell Park estate in Dublin 15, the developer applied to change two units intended to be childcare facilities into housing but this was refused by Fingal County Council in 2023 because it would 'set an inappropriate precedent'. Ms Currie said these buildings are 'still lying empty.' 'As parents we realise that finding childcare is a challenge. You have parents that believe that they've found a childcare solution that's going to be in their estate, or close to them, and then it never materialises. You can imagine the disappointment that follows,' Ms Currie said. She said she was calling on the Department of Finance to make childcare a 'priority' in the ongoing review of the National Development Plan . 'This is our moment to be able to say that childcare is essential infrastructure,' Ms Currie said.
Irish Times
05-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Families paying highest childcare costs to benefit from cap in September
Families paying some of the country's highest childcare fees will see costs reduced in September after the Department of Children confirmed new caps on what providers can charge. The new ceilings should mean no parents pay more than €295 per week for a child attending a service participating in the Government's Core Funding scheme for between 40 and 50 hours a week. That figure will, in most cases, reduce to €198.70 after other supports are factored in. The caps vary according to the number of hours involved. The reductions, however, will only affect those parents whose children attend the most expensive services in receipt of Core Funding, with about 10 per cent of the almost 4,500 Government-supported providers charging at least one type of fee that will have to be reduced. In many cases, however, the savings should amount to more than €100 per child per month. READ MORE The imposition of fee caps from September on service providers in receipt of Core Funding had been scheduled for some time, but they had only previously applied to services that signed up to Core Funding for the first time. The department said on Thursday that the new caps would bring the gross fees paid by parents at more expensive services closer to the national average cost of €197 per week. At the announcement, Minister for Children Norma Foley acknowledged the Government still has considerable ground to cover to honour commitments that costs to parents will be cut to €200 per month. She said this would be done during the life of the Government, but said it was too early to indicate what scale of reductions might be funded in this year's budget. The childcare sector funding year runs from September to August and most of the big funding changes set to take effect later this year were announced before the current Government was elected. 'The programme for government has a very clear commitment around the €200 and that is our absolute goal,' she said. 'I've been very clear that we will do that over the lifetime of this Government. It will be incremental, and we're starting at the very top where there are extraordinarily high costs to parents, and we're beginning to bring that down.' Ms Foley said Core Funding would increase from €331 million in the current year to at least €350 million in the year from September with up to €45 million in additional funding to support pay in the sector which is widely seen as a barrier to the provision of additional places and services due to the difficulty in attracting and retaining staff. Minimum rates in the sector are only fractionally above the minimum wage. Talks between employer groups and unions on a new sector-wide agreement on minimum rates are ongoing and while progress is said to have been made, it is not clear that any new deal would be in place by September. If it is not, or the increases agreed are too small, some of the €45 million will be retained by the department. 'This funding is welcome, but the scale of it has to be reflected in the pay of staff in the sector,' said Darragh O'Connor of Siptu. 'Otherwise, it will be impossible for anyone to go back and make the case for similar supports in future years.' Karen Clince, chief executive at one of the country's largest providers, Tigers, welcomed the increased levels of Core Funding to be provided. But she said 'it doesn't go nearly far enough to address the horrific staffing we find ourselves in. We need more focus on pay and conditions rather than just vote-winning affordability.'
