Strip search concerns at troubled youth jail

Oberstown House report must not remain secret, say authors

QUESTIONS have been raised over whether juveniles in a State detention facility could have been subjected to unauthorised intimate internal searches and strip searches, as a secret report into Oberstown remains unpublished for more than two years.

While the facility insists that no internal searches have ever taken place at the facility, independent authors responded to Oireachtas questions on the issue by saying that there is often a difference between stated policies and what ‘is happening on the ground’.

The authors of the report have urged that it be published in the interests of transparency, and have argued that each of the four reasons given by the State for nonpublication are ‘seriously flawed’.

Minister for Children Katherine Zappone commissioned the €15,000 report following a spate of intense violence, which included riots, fires and extensive damage at the north Co. Dublin facility, in 2016.

Among the 95 recommendations by its authors are that ‘internal body cavity searches should never be undertaken unless authorised by a doctor for medical reasons’.

It also recommends that all other searches of young people, with the exception of ‘pat-downs’, should be authorised by a senior manager, and that a senior manager should be responsible and accountable for ensuring that all searches are properly authorised and recorded.

However, Sinn Féin TD Denise Mitchell said she remains ‘concerned’ as to why the authors felt compelled to include this clause on cavity searches in their report, which she found ‘alarming.’

Cavity searches are not permitted in Irish adult prisons. ‘The thing that worries me is how such recommendations came about? And we are still none the wiser,’ said the Dublin Bay North TD.

One of the report’s authors, Professor Nick Hardwick said while he cannot comment on the exact contents of the report – as it is up to the State to publish it – what happens on the ground, and perhaps unknown to the governor, is different to what is set out in guidelines.

‘Quite often, what is happening in Oberstown was that the written policies were great but that was not what we found to be happening on the ground,’ said Prof. Hardwick, of the University of London.

As of January, Ms Zappone’s department has listed the action points on each of the 95 recommendations to date. In respect of cavity searches, it states: ‘The [Oberstown] campus policy on searches clearly states that internal body searches should never be used unless authorised and undertaken by a doctor for medical reasons.’

A spokesman told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘Internal cavity searches do not and have not taken place in Oberstown.’

Professor Ursula Kilkelly, chair of the board of Oberstown, said the board was not given the opportunity to address issues in the report before it was finalised, and claimed it contained ‘inaccuracies’.