Prisons have become warehouses for juvenile offenders, with around a third of the prison population under 21, according to the Prison Officers' Association.
In January two 15-year-old boys were held in Limerick Prison, an adult prison, according to the latest figures. In the same month two 16-year-olds were also in adult prisons, one in Cork and the other in Wheatfield in Dublin.
More than 140 prisoners in Mountjoy in Dublin were under 21 that month, and nine of them were 17-year-olds.
The system was "warehousing young offenders," the outgoing POA assistant general secretary, Mr Ray Murphy, said. The total number of juveniles in Irish prisons in January was 730.
"We're just containing them and there's no way of dealing with them so they just move on to bigger things in the criminal fraternity," he said.
The POA submission to the National Crime Forum said that prisons were "turning juvenile offenders into future crime lords," and the "staggering number of juvenile offenders" was the biggest problem facing the Irish prison service.
"There is only one specific closed place of detention for juvenile offenders and that is St Patrick's Institution which has an operational capacity of 160," Mr Murphy said. In January there were 198 juveniles in St Patrick's, more than half of whom were 18 or under.
"The question has to be asked, has the prison system given up the rehabilitation objective or are we simply in the business of containment?" Mr Murphy said. St Patrick's was being run "solely on the basis that it is a prison and as such, loses any of the effectiveness that it is supposed to have in trying to reform the juvenile."
Mr Murphy said the regime in St Patrick's was exactly the same as in Mountjoy and Cork adult prisons. "Prisons were never intended to be universities of crime where young people gain their criminal education from mixing with armed robbers and drug barons to eventually end up serving longer sentences for more serious crimes."
The conference agreed to "press for a national policy to deal with prison overcrowding in a structured way." Deputy general secretary Mr Tom Hoare said that such a plan could mean doubling prisoners up in cells, which has been resisted strongly by the POA.
