Staff at teen detention centre to be given riot gear
STAFF at the Oberstown teenage detention centre are to be provided with specialist riot gear during the next few weeks. The agreement to provide personal protection equipment is part of a New Year peace deal between the staff and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.
This follows a series of riots, break-outs, assaults with screwdrivers and rooftop protests in recent months. The new equipment could include helmets, stab vests, batons, CS gas grenades, reinforced visors, truncheons, pepper sprays and even non-lethal Taser stun-guns.
The Impact trade union has secured an agreement for an independent review of the use of protection for staff at the north Co Dublin centre. Its national secretary Eamonn Donnelly said the review would be carried out as a standalone process ‘and as a matter of absolute priority’, to be concluded during January 2017.
In return, the union chiefs have deferred strikes, which had been due to start this Tuesday. The north Dublin centre houses up to 40 teenagers, some of whom have serious criminal records. Last summer, part of the complex was set on fire and the Garda Emergency Response Unit was called out to support the staff. Eight weeks ago, gardaí in riot gear were dispatched to the centre after two teenage boys escaped and climbed onto roof.
Three months ago, the High Court heard denials from lawyers for Oberstown and the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs that the centre operated a regime of solitary confinement. They said it had a ‘separation policy’.
Lawyers for an inmate claimed that their child client had been held in lock-up there for 24 hours ‘without even a shirt on his back’.