A high support unit for young people run by the HSE is to be closed following inspections by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), which concluded that ‘children were not safe' there.

According to HIQA, the Rath na nÓg High support Unit in Castleblaney, Co Monaghan, is part of the HSE's National High Support and Special Care Service. It provides care and support to young people aged between 12 and 18 ‘who require a more specialised service than foster care and mainstream residential care can provide'.

HIQA inspectors carried out unannounced inspections at the centre on July 25-26 of this year. At this time, there were four young people living there, ranging in age from 12 to 17.

The centre had previously been inspected twice in 2012 and the inspectors noted that while some improvements had been made, ‘this was not sufficient to address the current serious risks to the health and welfare of children and young people living in the unit'.

"Inspectors concluded that children were not safe," the report stated.

It said that the service ‘was not able to manage children and young people's behaviours', which included settling fires, assaults, bullying, self-harming and absences without authority.

The inspection revealed major concerns relating to fire safety. For example, the director of the centre provided correspondence from a fire safety consultant indicating that as of June 2013, all requirements in relation to fire safety and building control regulations had been complied with. However when reviewed, the HIQA inspectors found that this document was an ‘opinion' and had been signed in respect of the wrong regulations.

Furthermore, while a fire safety risk assessment had been completed in January 2013, it had not taken into account the fact that all external doors were locked from 9pm to 7.30am daily.

"The current fire system did not allow the doors to be unlocked automatically in the event of smoke or a fire being detected, although four fires had been lit within the centre in the six months prior to inspection and it was unclear what actions had been taken to review the current practice and what mitigating actions had been introduced to effectively manage the risk," the report said.

Meanwhile, the minutes of the health and safety committee and senior management meetings only made ‘limited reference to the recent fires or the implications of this for fire safety practices'.

In fact, the young people living there were not even involved in any fire drills after these fires.

In terms of managing behaviour, major problems were found and strategies to manage children's behaviour ‘were not effective'.

"Children continued to display complex and unsafe behaviours and some children developed new challenging behaviour as a result of mixing with the other children and young people in the unit," the report noted.

It revealed that the Gardai had to be called regularly to provide assistance to staff and this served to ‘further re-enforce the children's perception that the staff were not able to maintain order'.

"Whilst it is highly likely that children and young people coming to a high support unit will present with complex behaviours, their outcomes should improve as a result of the care which they receive.

"Inspectors were concerned that there was little expectation that the children and young people could change or their behaviour could improve and this was also reflected in the interviews inspectors undertook with the social workers allocated to the children and young people in the unit," the report said.

Meanwhile, bullying at the unit was not well managed ‘and did not promote a safe and positive environment for children and young people'.

There was ‘little evidence of consequences' applied to those who bullied others and staff did not address this behaviour.

Furthermore, case records and other documents showed that some children were subjected to ‘systemic bullying by others while in the unit'.

Unauthorised absences were also a matter of concern, with almost 100 such absences recorded since January 2013. Most of these were described as ‘absent at risk', which meant after leaving, the young people engaged in risky behaviour such as drinking alcohol, taking drugs and ‘sexualised behaviour'.

"In spite of the practice of locking doors, children and young people continued to leave the centre on an unauthorised basis... In effect, children and young people's risk taking behaviour did not reduce although they were regularly detained," the report stated.

Due to the seriousness of these findings, the inspectors returned to the centre in August 2013. While some progress had been made, they found that there ‘continued to be ongoing risks to children, young people and staff within the centre'.

"There was a lack of confidence amongst the staff team in how to address children and young people's individual and group challenges during periods of disruptive behaviour.

"The requirement for the management team to provide clear direction and develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to address the various components contributing to the current crisis within the unit needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency," the HIQA inspectors said.

Following on from this, the HSE has announced its plans to close the unit by the end of November 2013. It said that this closure is ‘in line with the services national policy to decommission high support units and increase the services capacity of Special Care Services'.

"The skills and experiences of the staff in Rath na nÓg will continue to be utilised to support vulnerable children in local communities. Discussions will take place with staff and their representatives in relation to the redeployment and redesignation of staff," the HSE added.

The unit is made up of two separate accommodation units adjacent to each other, an onsite school, a recreational facility and an administrative building. At the time of inspection, only one accommodation unit was in use and was staffed to provide care to four young people.