The detention of a disturbed youth in St Patrick's Institution has been found to contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.
In a judgment which will put increased pressure on the next government to deal urgently with the problem of out-of-control children, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg found that St Patrick's Institution cannot be regarded as a secure educational institution for such children when they have not been convicted of a criminal offence.
However, the ruling does not interfere with the centre's operation as a place of detention for young offenders, including those under the age of 16, as has been proposed by the present Government. The case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg by one of a number of disturbed young people whose cases came before the High Court, usually before Mr Justice Peter Kelly.
In the absence of a suitable secure unit for the boy, who was aged 17 at the time, the High Court ordered him to be sent to St Patrick's for a month in 1997.
This decision was appealed to the High Court, where his legal team argued that sending him to a penal institution when he had been neither charged with nor convicted of a criminal offence contravened his constitutional right to liberty.
The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the High Court. The case then went to the Strasbourg court, where it was argued that his detention in St Patrick's contravened Article 5.1, guaranteeing the right to liberty; Article 5.1, guaranteeing an enforceable right to compensation; Article 3, prohibiting inhuman and degrading treatment; and two other articles which were found not to have been violated.
The Government argued that his detention was in accordance with both domestic and Convention law. However, the court found it violated Articles 5.1 and 5.5, but not Article 3.
The judgment went into some detail on the type of secure educational provision appropriate to such young people.
The words "education supervision" must not be equated rigidly with notions of classroom teaching, it said. "In the context of a young person in local-authority care, educational supervision must embrace many aspects of the exercise, by the local authority, of parental rights for the benefit and protection of the person concerned.
"However, the court does not consider, and indeed it does not appear to be argued by the Government, that St Patrick's itself constituted 'educational supervision'. As noted above, it was a penal institution and the applicant was subjected to its disciplinary regime."
Children have been sent to St Patrick's on civil orders within the past month, said one legal source. "There could be a lot more cases before the court if proper provision is not made for them."
• The Irish Council for Civil Liberties said the ruling deepened the shame which the Government should feel at sending troubled children to prisons, writes Nuala Haughey.
"For a wealthy country in 2002 still not to have appropriate safe places of detention for the most troubled children who are in danger of harming themselves and others is a national disgrace," said Mr Liam Herrick, describing the juvenile justice system as "Dickensian".
Mr Ray Dooley from the Children's Rights Alliance said he was very pleased with the court's ruling, which he hoped would generate sufficient political will to deal with children with behavioural problems comprehensively and no longer on an ad-hoc basis.
More resources were necessary to ensure adequate facilities for troubled children, fully staffed by social workers and not prison officers, he said.
He also said that provisions of the Children Act, 2001, which emphasise rehabilitation and counselling for children and their families, should be brought into force.