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.
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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 campusOpens 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”.
Oberstown management has been contacted for comment.
The Department of Children said it offers its “full support to any member of staff who has been injured during the course of their work”.
“As with all circumstances of this nature, these matters will be the subject of internal review,” it said, adding that it does not comment on operational matters relating to Oberstown.
