Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Senators for their unanimous support across the House for the closure of St. Patrick's. It is long overdue indeed, as we know, and I am delighted to be in a position to bring the Bill to the House. We have had wide-ranging comments on the associated issues that arise when we talk about young or older people being in detention centres and prisons. Some really interesting points have been raised.I should note the penal reform report, which I published in the course of the year and on the implementation of which I now have a working group, addresses quite a few of the issues raised by Senators. It is an extremely good report and the people responsible for it were highly expert and had a wide-ranging range of expertise. It addresses quite a few of the issues raised by Senators on keeping people out of prison, as well as some of the points Senator Quinn made about rehabilitation, training and the kinds of interesting initiatives that can be seen in other countries regarding people who are detained to ensure they get a second chance and that their lives of crime can be interrupted effectively. This has been a helpful debate and I reiterate that many of the issues are addressed in the aforementioned penal reform report.

Let us consider some of the figures, for example, in respect of community returns. Pilot projects were carried out over the past year, and at present 100 prisoners are in the community return programme, which is being run between the Prison Service and the Probation Service. It is a good programme. The success rate has been high and the incidence of crimes committed by people on the programme has been very low. Consequently, that kind of programme really is worth trying. The new fines legislation, which was mentioned by Senator Cummins and a number of other Members, will come into effect from the first week in January and will implement the legislation that has passed through the House. The Courts Service has been working on its implementation because it required some developments on the information technology side. Senators Bacik and Conway welcomed the Bill and asked the question as to the actual closure. In this regard, the last remaining issue is the recruitment of staff and it is a question of making sure those staff can be put in place. I cannot emphasise enough its critical importance, as it pertains to the recruitment of care staff and ensuring the requisite number of staff are ready to deal with the young people who will be remanded and will be sent to Oberstown. The Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection and I have discussed this matter and she certainly will take any action she can to ensure people know about these jobs that are available. While they undoubtedly are demanding jobs, as working in a closed institution is highly demanding, there are people around who have done this kind of work, who are skilled and who may be looking for work. It is to be hoped they will be attracted to work in Oberstown and I note the terms and conditions also have been improved somewhat. I ask anyone who is in a position to advise people who may be interested in this to do so, because it is really important that we get the staff in place to open the additional units so that we can deal with the numbers. Thereafter, everybody who is under 18 and who is referred will end up in one of the units in Oberstown rather than in Wheatfield Prison. The people who are in Wheatfield at present will serve out their sentence there, but thereafter, once the staff are in place, all new referrals will go directly to Oberstown.

I must state that this is a nice opportunity to send birthday greetings to Dr. Whitaker from the House, and I believe he would be pleased.