Staff at Oberstown Children Detention Campus are set to strike again on Tuesday August 25th.
It will be their fourth work stoppage this summer over plans to expand the capacity of the north Dublin facility for young offenders.
Members of the Fórsa trade union have already taken to the picket line this week in a protest relating to staffing levels, saying they’re “running on fumes”.
While acknowledging that management have made progress in hiring 11 new staff, they believe recent high-profile events, such as wrong-way motorway driving, will put on further pressure to find beds for teenagers in trouble with the law.
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Workers are concerned that inadequate staff ratios will undermine their safety, particularly in light of a spate of serious assaults on the campus last summer.
One social care worker told The Irish Times Work Correspondent Emmet Malone these “young people often present with challenging and difficult behaviour; they’re only in Oberstown as a last resort and we regularly find ourselves in difficult, sometimes dangerous situations ... If we don’t have enough staff to operate the unit safely, properly and adequately, the young people we work with on a daily basis are suffering too.”
But if management is engaging with the union, why are staff still planning to strike on Tuesday? What are the sticking points and what might bring this dispute to a close?
You can listen to the conversation on the player above, or search for In The News wherever you get your podcasts.
