A lack of sufficient detention places for teenage offenders who repeatedly breach bail risks bringing the child justice system “into disrepute”, the president of the District Court has warned.
Judge Paul Kelly said he often worried a “terrible accident” might happen because he again had to give a teenage defendant bail due to no beds being available in Oberstown youth detention centre.
His fears include potentially fatal outcomes of incidents involving young people driving the wrong way on motorways or in Dublin’s port tunnel.
The judge told The Irish Times he is aware of a group of serial teen offenders dubbed the “Lucky Dip” gang who regularly post on social media sites videos of them engaging in such exploits alongside “#oberstown”.
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Oberstown, which provides care and education to young people on detention or remand orders from the courts, has 46 beds, 40 for boys and six for girls. It has no legal power to admit more than that because its capacity is limited by a certificate from the Minister for Children.
[ Capacity at Oberstown Child Detention Campus to be slightly extendedOpens in new window ]
When it comes to boys, Oberstown is consistently at full, or near full, capacity.
Outside of the most serious cases emanating from the Central Criminal Court, getting a bed in Oberstown depends on “the luck of the draw” and on which District Court around the country “gets their spake in first”, Judge Kelly said.
While declining to comment on individual cases and stressing that detention for children is a “last resort”, the judge said he is aware, after a court tells some repeat offenders no bed is available in Oberstown, “they are back on the tear that evening”.
“The difficulty for gardaí and the court is, if you give bail on conditions, the conditions must mean something. They can only mean something if they can be enforced.”
“When a child comes before me, and the guard says he wants bail removed because there were 17 breaches of it since the last court appearance – this happens very frequently – then I have to check around the bed situation and may have to say: ‘Sorry, while I accept your evidence, we don’t have a bed’. Then I have to let him out again.”
The upshot is the child “knows there is no sanction, bail means nothing: ‘I can do what I like’.”
That awareness, says the judge, is “absolutely out there” among what he believes to be a “hardcore minority” of repeat child offenders.
“If there is no bed for a child persistently breaching bail, and they have been given every opportunity to stay out of custody by adhering to bail conditions, it’s a problem for everyone,” he said. “It does run the risk of bringing the system into disrepute.”
