Saturday May 23 2009
The Department of Education was allowed monitor the investigation of its shortcomings
Among all the terrible things that happened to thousands of boys and girls sent to the juvenile prisons in Ireland, worst of all was the committal procedure in the District Courts. Not all went that way but the majority did.
In the august atmosphere of a courtroom, with guards, priests, supposed social workers and guardians of good Catholic family life looking on, the child, alone or with siblings but without proper legal defence, was removed from the limited life they had led up to that point and sent for years into a prison system, inadequate and cruel in almost every aspect. Many simply became slave labour.
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