Almost 150 children and teenagers have been placed in adult prisons since the beginning of this year, in breach of international treaties which prohibit the detention of juveniles alongside adults.
The Prison Service has confirmed to The Irish Times that 147 young people aged between 15 and 17 have been placed in adult places of detention such as St Patrick's Institution, Cloverhill and Limerick prisons since January of this year. One child was 15 years of age, 28 were 16 years old and 115 were aged 17.
A total of 166 children aged between 15 and 17 were in Irish prisons during 2004.
The Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan, said yesterday that adult prisons were highly inappropriate settings for children and that figures showed that children were being consistently placed in adult prisons.
"Children in detention are amongst the most vulnerable children in the State. It's clear that an adult prison cannot meet the needs of children," she said.
Ms Logan is concerned that adult places of detention used to imprison children were excluded from her investigatory remit and she was prevented from acting on complaints received from children in such settings.
A spokesman for the Irish Prison Service, however, said it was obliged to deal with referrals from the courts. While the prison service was used to dealing with 16 to 18-year-olds, the admission of 15-year-olds posed problems.
"We don't want to have under-15s, but the courts at times have no choice but to put a child there for their own protection. We try to keep them separate, we're not geared up to deal with children of that age." He said St Patrick's Institution, which admits young offenders aged between 16 and 21, provided a number of creative and rehabilitative programmes for juveniles.
Senior Government sources say plans to end the practice of jailing children alongside adults are due to be presented to Cabinet shortly. Minister of State for Children Brian Lenihan has said he wants to replace detention centres located on the grounds of adult jails and replace them with correction schools, such as Trinity House in north Dublin.
The placement of children in adult places of detention is in breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the Government has signed up to, and the European Convention on Human Rights. Geoffrey Shannon, a solicitor who specialises in children's rights and family law, said the practice was also against the spirit of the Children's Act, which states that the detention for young offenders should be a measure of last resort.
The practice of jailing children alongside adults is likely to be raised before a UN committee on children's rights early next year, which will be monitoring Ireland's implementation of the convention. In a 1998 UN report, criticism about the lack of co-ordination in childcare services led to the establishment of the National Children's Office and the Ombudsman for Children.