{"id":597083,"date":"2026-08-18T13:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/597083\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T13:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:56:10","slug":"oberstown-workers-protesting-outside-dept-of-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/597083\/","title":{"rendered":"Oberstown workers protesting outside Dept of Children"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Workers from Oberstown Children Detention Campus have begun a protest outside the Department of Children as part of an ongoing industrial relations dispute.<\/p>\n<p>The protest involving members of the F\u00f3rsa union coincides with a 10-hour work stoppage at the campus in Dublin today, which is the third such industrial action this month.<\/p>\n<p>It comes after a ballot of F\u00f3rsa members which backed industrial action up to and including a full withdrawal of labour, with the union saying workers have previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/news\/dublin\/2025\/0620\/1519469-oberstown-campus-dublin\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported &#8220;assaults on staff and injuries requiring hospital treatment in circumstances where staffing levels were stretched&#8221;.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The union members have been engaged in a work-to-rule at Oberstown since the end of June.<\/p>\n<p>F\u00f3rsa expressed &#8220;frustration&#8221; and said efforts to engage with management on key issues &#8220;broke down last week&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It said: &#8220;Safe staffing in Oberstown remains a concern for F\u00f3rsa members employed there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"F\u00f3rsa staff from Oberstown Child Detention campus on the picket line outside the Department of Children\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0024dbc6-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nUnion members have been engaged in a work-to-rule at Oberstown since the end of June<\/p>\n<p>The union&#8217;s assistant general secretary Deirdre O\u2019Connell said: &#8220;Oberstown management has refused to include key elements of F\u00f3rsa\u2019s claim in its business case to the Department of Children.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These include measures to address the recruitment difficulties facing the service, which management has said should be dealt with separately through &#8216;local bargaining\u2019, while also acknowledging that there are not enough resources allocated to local bargaining to resolve them.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"F\u00f3rsa Assistant General Secretary Deirdre O'Connell joins Staff of Oberstown Children's Detention Centre\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0024dc0d-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nF\u00f3rsa Assistant General Secretary Deirdre O&#8217;Connell spoke about the safety fears of staff. Pic: Collins<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The consequence of this approach is that it stalls efforts to resolve the issues in dispute and prolongs a situation where staff and residents face increased risks to personal safety.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Oberstown said it &#8220;regrets&#8221; the work stoppage, adding: &#8220;We are disappointed that this escalation is taking place while engagement through the established industrial relations process remains ongoing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It said it and the Department of Children had engaged &#8220;extensively&#8221; with staff representatives, including through the Workplace Relations Commission.<\/p>\n<p>The facility said it remains &#8220;fully committed to working constructively towards a resolution&#8221; and had taken a &#8220;proactive approach to strengthening frontline staffing&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Workers from Oberstown Children Detention Campus have begun a protest outside the Department of Children as part of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-597083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}