The Minister of State with responsibility for Children, Brian Lenihan, has said plans to end the detention of children alongside adults in prisons will be brought to Cabinet shortly.
Mr Lenihan said he wants to see the establishment of child-detention schools to cater for under 18s, such as Trinity House in north Dublin, with a strong emphasis on education.
He was responding to a report in The Irish Times yesterday which reported that 147 juveniles aged between 15 and 17 had been jailed in adult prisons such as Cloverhill, Mountjoy, Limerick and St Patrick's Institution.
Labour's spokesman on justice, Joe Costello, said the figures were "shocking" and underlined the need for the non-custodial aspects of the Children's Act to be implemented.
It is also proposed, subject to Cabinet approval, to extend the remit of the Irish Social Services Inspectorate (ISSI) to include child-detention centres, Mr Lenihan said.
There is currently no independent inspectorate for these centres.
Concern over the lack of inspections and facilities for 16- to 18-year-old children was also raised yesterday by the board of the Special Residential Services Board (SRSB), the national body that advises the Government on children in detention.
The SRSB's chief executive, Roger Kileen, said that progress has been made in providing suitable residential care for children, but there was room for further residential care and community support.
He said the number of children being placed in detention schools is decreasing, which may be due to support for alternative measures, such as community support for families, youth advocacy programmes and improved co-operation between agencies.
Mr Kileen estimated that 100 children were currently in receipt of community-based services who might otherwise be in secure residential settings.
A total of 211 children were placed in child detention schools, such as Oberstown and Trinity House, last year. The majority of children (38 per cent) were from the Dublin area. The average age on admission was 15 years for boys and 16 years for girls.
The majority of children were detained for robbery and theft offences (34 per cent), car theft (17 per cent), criminal damage (17 per cent), assault (15 per cent), burglary (8 per cent) and public order (7 per cent).
Residential care, typically for non-offending children, consists of 13 high-support units and three special-care units. They are aimed at troubled children who need intensive support away from home but cannot be cared for in normal residential settings.
Meanwhile, the National Youth Foundation, the country's largest youthwork organisation, said the placement of children in adult prisons served to highlight the crisis in the juvenile justice system.
It called for the Children's Act to be fully implemented, which would introduce more alternatives to custody.
