A new juvenile detention centre at St Patrick's Institution in Dublin will have more staff than inmates and will focus on giving young offenders "a second chance", according to the director of the Prison Service.
Mr Seán Aylward said the best aspects of the existing special school system would be incorporated into the new regime at St Patrick's, which is likely to accept its first juvenile offenders before the end of next month.
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, announced two weeks ago that the institution would be used to house young offenders as a short-term "measure of last resort" while new accommodation was being delivered.
Mr Aylward revealed, however, that the centre was likely to be used for up to two years, while the existing special schools system was being reorganised. The overall cost of preparing the facility and running it for that time is expected to be close to €9 million.
Mr Aylward was speaking to journalists at the Prison Officers' Association annual conference in Waterford, which concluded yesterday.
A maximum of 20 young people would be housed in the facility, he said, which would be in the institution's B wing, the former women's prison. The facility would be called St Patrick's Special School, to distinguish it from the remainder of the institution, and would house offenders aged 14 and 15. They would have no contact with other prisoners in St Patrick's.
Recruitment of nurses, a doctor, a psychologist and other full-time professional staff is taking place. Prison officers there will receive training in childcare.
Ten teachers, including a principal, will be employed at the facility, giving a pupil-teacher ratio of two to one. "That's what I asked for and that's what I got," Mr Aylward said.
"The other staff ratios will also be very high. Our whole focus will be on giving the young person a second chance."
Children detained there would have single cells with television sets and would also have personal computers for educational purposes, but without Internet access.
In response to a suggestion that a tougher regime was called for, he said: "Maybe the nation has failed some of these children. We're catching up with a societal failure, and that can be expensive."
Advice given by the Garda to the Department of Justice, he said, was that the number of young people who could not be managed by the existing system was extremely small.
"Contrary to the view that there are hundreds and hundreds of unmanageable young people out there, the Garda suggested there was a ceiling of about 20 in the whole State.
"I take the view, and I think I'm supported by people in the system, that people do not remain indefinitely out of control. They may be going through a particularly awful period in their lives. They may have a substance abuse problem or whatever.
"We feel that while they may have to be managed and supervised, either in a community setting or a special school, they don't have to be retained in a very strongly custodial setting. The big thing we are hoping for is that there is a systematic approach towards people's entry into this new special school and that there's a way out for them."
The facility, he said, would house teenagers on remand, who were being assessed by the probation and welfare service, and others who had been through the courts.
Some will be detained there because of difficulties in managing them elsewhere.
The regime would operate on an "incentive basis", he said, giving those detained more freedom and facilities as behaviour improved.
The financial costs would be high, he acknowledged. Staff training and other investments in the facility would have long-term benefits, as people would be redeployed elsewhere in the future.
