MOBILITY trips for young offenders at three north Dublin facilities have been banned for a month.
The Minister of State for Education, Mr Austin Currie, announced the ban yesterday and expressed "serious concern at a number of recent incidents where offenders had absconded while on such trips".
However, he also said "properly supervised and structured mobility trips" were a valuable part of the rehabilitative process.
Last July a 15-year-old boy absconded when he was taken to the cinema from Trinity House detention centre only days after he was convicted of attempted rape.
Much of the responsibility for the recent disturbances in Killinarden in Dublin was popularly attributed to a 15-year-old who absconded from Trinity House after serving less than a month of a two-year sentence for armed robbery.
The ban announced by Mr Currie will apply to Oberstown Boys' Centre, Oberstown Girls' Centre and Trinity House. The three centres have a single board of management which will consider the issue next month.
Mr Currie has also sought an urgent review of security at the Oberstown campus in Lusk, where the three centres are located. "Mobility trips are undertaken as part of the overall behaviour modification programmes pursued in the young offender centres," he said.
"Participation in such trips is based on a rating or merit system through which good behaviour is encouraged and rewarded."
But there was legitimate public concern over people absconding on these trips, he said. Total security could never be guaranteed, but the public had a right to expect such incidents would be minimised.