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New chair for Oberstown board appointed

A former Commissioner for Children in the North is set to chair the board of management of the Oberstown Children Detention Campus.

Koulla Yiasouma will take up the post in June, replacing Prof Ursula Kilkelly, whose term comes to an end this month.

She will meet the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth before her appointment, for a four-year term, is formally confirmed.

‘Wealth of experience’

Yiasouma served as Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People between 2015 and 2023.

Before that, she was director of Include Youth, an independent rights-based organisation working with young people involved in the criminal-justice and care systems in the North.

Roderic O’Gorman (Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth) said that Yiasouma would bring “a wealth of experience and strategic capability” to the role.

The minister also paid tribute to Prof Kilkelly, saying that she had overseen a transformation of the campus, both in terms of the modernisation of its facilities, and the adoption of a children’s rights framework that now governed all aspects of its operation.

Oberstown is Ireland’s national centre for the detention, care and education of young people under 18 who are referred by the courts on detention or remand orders. It was established under the Children Act 2001.