AN INQUIRY has started into how a Dublin teenager described by gardai as a "dangerous criminal for his age" escaped from a secure unit.
Gardai were last night searching for the 15 year old who absconded from Trinity House detention centre for boys in Lusk. Co Dublin, with the help of his older brother.
The pair escaped in a car belonging to the centre after threatening a supervisor during a visit early on Tuesday evening.
The youth was in the centre, which is run by the Department of Education, on a two year court order imposed last year for steal ing a car.
He is also awaiting trial on a number of other serious crimes in the Tallaght area, according to gardai.
His brother, sister and a small child visited him in the secure unit on Tuesday evening. The brother, who is in his 20s, grabbed a duty officer around the neck and threatened him, apparently claiming that he had a gun.
The pair got the keys of the wing and made off in a navy Ford Mondeo car belonging to Trinity House. The car was later found in Drogheda. No staff members were injured in the incident.
The youth, whose parents live in Crumlin, is well known to gardai in the Tallaght area where he used to live.
The Minister of State at the Department of Education, Mr Austin Currie, will receive a full report on the incident which is the third escape from Trinity House in three years, a spokesman for the department said.
A boy absconded in 1995 in what Trinity House's director, Mr Tony O'Donovan, described as a "professional" escape with outside assistance. There were nine attacks on staff in Trinity House in 1995.
There are 30 children in the house, which is the State's only secure detention centre for boys aged between 12 and 16. There is one teacher for every four children there.
It costs around £74,000 a year to keep a child at the centre. At the adjoining Oberstown Boys' Centre, a more open reformatory school, it costs more than £59,000 for each child annually.
Its counterpart, Oberstown Girls' Centre, costs £53,881 per resident.
Members of Lusk Community Council last year expressed fears about violent attacks during escape attempts by young offenders.
Another 15 year old boy convicted of attempted rape who was serving a sentence in Trinity House absconded from custody last July.
His escape, while on a supervised visit to a Dublin cinema, led to a review by Trinity House of its policy of bringing inmates on trips outside the secure centre.
A spokeswoman for Trinity House declined to comment on the incident yesterday and referred inquiries to the Department of Education.