The fire was extingushed by Dublin Fire Brigade. A garda helicopter was overhead 15 minutes later.
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A fire at the Oberstown Detention Campus in Lusk last night has been brought under control.
It happened as staff from Impact and Siptu were carrying out an eight-hour stoppage outside the main gates of the complex in a dispute over increasing assaults and poor safety measures.
Tom Hoare is Assistant General Secretary with IMPACT – one of the unions representing staff: “They’re dealing with a different clientele than the one that they would be used to from various areas before”.
“The number of assaults on staff has continued to grow since the expansion of Oberstown to facilitate the transfer of offenders from the prison service”.
One local who could see the fire from his back garden said: “We heard sirens and more sirens and thought it might have been a crash on the (M1) motorway”.
The unions say there were more than 100 violent incidents in the centre past year, nearly half of which were classed as critical.
Critical assaults and injuries necessitated a total of 3,005 employee sick days, involving 65 staff members.
Meanwhile, SIPTU and IMPACT trade unions said the new expanded campus is badly created to deal with vulnerable young people and violent offenders.
The action will last until 4pm – during which time residents will be confined to their rooms.
“On the 21 August 2016 an agreement was reached between management and unions on a framework to address these issues”.
Unions said full emergency cover will remain in place during the stoppage, which will commence at 8am.
“This agreement was notified to Work Relations Commission on the 22 nd August 2016”.
“I do understand the staff have safety concerns”.
Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone called on the unions to cancel the industrial action and use the mechanisms provided to address their concerns.
“This has been a positive and successful development and this measure will support the stabilisation of the operations of the campus further”.
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Director of the Oberstown Children’s Detention Campus is Pat Bergin: “Part of the information that is being put out to us about assault, we have reduced the number of people on assault or injury relief scheme, which was 9% in November 2015 down to just under 2% this month”.
