Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I welcome this debate for which I, Senator Cummins and others have called for some time. It is important the House debates overcrowding in the prison system, although I hope the focus of this debate will continue to extend beyond overcrowding and into more general areas of prison policy. I am pleased many colleagues spoke about issues other than the important issue of overcrowding.

I listened attentively and with increasing incredulity to the Minister's speech. Like Senator Regan, I was stunned to hear his rosy, almost utopian vision of Irish prisons which is a million miles removed from reality. Even if one does not go into the prisons to observe the reality, the Minister's vision is also far removed from the reports about prisons which have been produced in recent years, as it is from the experience of prisoners and those working in the prisons.

It is important that we place on record the difficulties and problems facing the prison system. The starting point is to tackle the Minister's point that the Government has a strategy. To be fair to him, the problem with the system has been around for much longer than the current Minister. That Ireland does not have a coherent or consistent approach to imprisonment, sentencing or penal policy generally is the fault of the Executive and Legislature.

It is laughable for the Minister to claim the current Government has a policy. Its prison policy can be summed up in two ways. The first aspect of its approach is to throw legislation at problems. The result has been a large amount of rushed and problematic criminal justice legislation in recent times. I have described some of it as "July" legislation reflecting the fact that it was rushed through at the end of a parliamentary session when there is little prospect of thoughtful debate or amendments. This rushed legislation is creating problems in prosecuting offences in the courts. That is the first aspect of Government policy, such as it is.

The second feature of Government prison policy is to throw more prison places at the problem. This is not a real solution. The Minister referred to 700 new prison places coming on stream, including 170 places he recently opened in Wheatfield Prison. The Minister's figure does not include the supermax prison, as such prisons are known, in Thornton Hall, although it is not certain that project will ever be completed. It is disappointing that the Minister is throwing more prison places at a problem without questioning the reason so many people are being sent to prison or studying in any depth the types of offences for which people are being sent to prison or whether alternatives are available.

I strongly welcome the Minister's assertion that we need to focus on community based sanctions. I am also pleased to note he is introducing legislation requiring greater consideration to be given to the application of community service orders. While all Senators on this side welcome the Fines Act, which will result in less imprisonment of fine defaulters, it is disappointing that the legislation has not yet been commenced.

Welcome as they are, none of the initiatives to which I referred amounts to a coherent prison policy. I am not making a standard political attack, as one would expect from a member of the Opposition. The argument that we do not have a coherent prison policy has been made consistently by many commentators who do not have a political axe to grind, including the Irish Penal Reform Trust, academic commentators on prisons and, most recently and very powerfully, the former governor of Mountjoy Prison, Mr. John Lonergan, about whom Senator Mary White spoke. Tribute must be paid to Mr. Lonergan for making such a powerful critique of the prison system, for his reform proposals and for the humane manner in which he tried to improve conditions.

Notwithstanding the particular difficulty of seeking innovations in prison policy in recessionary times, the recession also presents us with an opportunity. For example, the Irish Penal Reform Trust has pointed out that penal reform is under the spotlight in Britain precisely because of budget cuts. The UK minister for justice, Mr. Ken Clarke, has proposed to reduce the prison population by a combination of legislative and policy initiatives. This is a progressive consequence of the need to make cutbacks in the prison budget. One of the precedents for Mr. Clarke's move was set in Canada where, in the 1990s, the government reduced public expenditure on prisons by 20% and the prison population by 11%. It also addressed the unnecessary use of custody and invested in community interventions. These steps had a progressive effect on penal policy generally which now has an increased focus on rehabilitation and the prevention of re-offending. Such a focus is lacking in our system.

I do not wish to sound as if I am being soft on crime. I accept, as all Senators do, that prison must remain a reality for serious offenders, particularly those who commit offences against the person. Nevertheless, we must also be aware that many people are serving time unnecessarily for minor offences, including the non-payment of fines, or offences for which community based sanctions offer a better prospect of rehabilitation. In terms of the needs of victims, which we must always remember, it is vital that we invest more in rehabilitation and the prevention of re-offending.

I propose to refer to some of the figures cited by the Minister in support of his case that we have a utopian prison system. The Minister focused on the number of persons in prison on any one day. Clearly, it is important to consider the detention rate, which has increased significantly in recent years. Currently, approximately 4,500 people are in prison on any one day. The figure has increased significantly since the mid-1980s when we had a peak in the crime rate and the Whitaker committee, despite the high crime rate, recommended we cap the number of prison places at 1,500.

In 2005, slightly more than 3,000 persons were in prison on any one day, yet a mere four years later the figure stands at 4,500 and continues to rise. Moreover, the new prison places coming on stream will further increase the detention rate. The figure cited by the Minister was low because it was based on 2008 data. On any one day, the detention rate now stands at between 93 and 101 persons per 100,000 of the population. This is much higher than the figure cited by the Minister. King's College recently estimated Ireland's detention rate to be 101 per 100,000 of the population. That alone misses the much higher rate of committals in our system and the Minister did not talk about this. The Irish Prison Service report for 2009 shows that the committal rate represents the number of committals to prison in any one year. That is a far higher rate than the rate of detention and it is because so many prisoners are in prison for such a short period that although on any one day one might have relatively low numbers proportionately, we are committing much larger numbers. A total of 15,425 committals to prison were made in 2009, which was an increase of almost 14% on 2008, and the trend has been for year-on-year increases. Of those committals, almost one third, that is, 4,806 were committed for non-payment of fines. This was a massive increase on the numbers committed for non-payment of fines in 2008, which itself constituted an increase. While it is to be hoped this will change once the Fines Act is commenced, it is certainly of great concern.

The Minister pointed out that the numbers serving longer prison sentences have increased, which is true. So too have the numbers of persons committed under sentence of less than three months and 5,750 of the aforementioned 15,000 committals in 2009 were committed for sentences of less than three months. Those are the people and committals that must be examined. If a person has been sentenced to less than three months, it is likely that he or she will be turned around through an overcrowded prison system in a matter of weeks or sometimes days. There is no prospect of rehabilitation and Senator O'Donovan noted that the only learning will be learning to commit more crime. There will be no real attempt to address the problems faced by many prisoners in respect of mental health, addiction, chronic poverty, unemployment and so on. There will be no attempt to address any rehabilitation aspects nor any attempts at treatment. The question must be asked whether we would be better served by changing our focus and by making imprisonment the sanction of last resort and by insisting instead that when considering sentences of such short duration, judges would consider non-custodial sanctions first. I am glad to note the Minister accepts this and proposes such legislation. There is also a financial imperative as, according to Irish Prison Service figures, it costs approximately €77,000 per annum to keep someone in prison for a year. The cost of an offender being placed under a community sanction is far less. While I do not have an up-to-date figure to hand - the Minister of State might provide one - I understand it is a much lower figure of approximately €2,000 per year.

The knock-on effect of providing more prison places or locking up increasing numbers of people without questioning the reason for it or whether any real public need for safety is being served by so doing has been serious overcrowding. I wish to focus on this point because the Minister again suggested this was not such a problem. Members know this is a problem and have seen the riots in Mountjoy Prison. Moreover, the recent Inspector of Prison's report stated that Mountjoy is operating at a bed capacity of 573 with bunks in the cells. Mr. John Lonergan has pointed out that the worst thing he ever did was to suggest that bunks might be put in cells because it enabled the doubling up of prisoners, thereby resulting in less safety. Even with doubled-up cells, however, 660 to 680 prisoners routinely were kept in Mountjoy through 2009 although structured activity is only possible for slightly more than 300 prisoners. The inspector himself recommended a maximum of 540 in the prison but clearly this number has been exceeded routinely and has led to real issues for the safety of prisoners and staff in the prison.

Slopping out is another factor about which the Minister spoke. There has been litigation on this practice recently that I believe will require the Government to change its procedure. It is appalling that in 2010, almost 30% of prisoners still must slop out. While the Minister stated that 72% of prison accommodation has in-cell sanitation, that means 28% of prisoners still slop out. This affects prisoners in Mountjoy, Cork and Limerick prisons and in his recent report, the Inspector of Prisons and Places of Detention was trenchant in his criticism of the slopping out practice which he described as inhuman and degrading treatment. He suggested a highly practical cost-neutral solution, which was to operate a toilet patrol throughout the night. This already is being done in Mountjoy up to 9:30 p.m. and could be continued after that time, which would be a short-term solution.

Clearly there are more long-term solutions. As the Minister noted, Mountjoy is Dickensian and it is clear some change is needed. The proposed prison at Thornton Hall is not the answer. If a new prison is to be built, consideration should be given to increasing the capacity of open prisons, which stands at only 6% of prison places at present. A far better approach would be to consider the redevelopment of Mountjoy on-site. I note that plans for so doing were at an advanced stage under the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue. This point has been documented in Mr. John Lonergan's book and has been known about by many Members. Has consideration being given to renewing those plans and redeveloping on-site and then using the Thornton Hall complex for other progressive innovation in prison policy?

I urge the Minister of State to consider a bolder and more progressive solution to developing a prison policy based on the idea that prison should be a sanction of last resort and that the focus should be on rehabilitation, prevention of reoffending and genuine initiatives such as the former Connect Programme, which had been rolled out across prisons with some success. Such a policy might be focused on trying to address serious reoffending issues within the prisons. There is a high rate of recidivism among the prison population, which constitutes a serious problem for victims and for society in general, and this is what should be addressed. Simply throwing more prison places or legislation at it is not the answer without a coherent policy based on greater use of community sanctions and less use of prison.