Mr. Martin Smyth:

Essentially, what Mr. Black has said is correct. We do everything we can to incentivise prisoners to engage in drug addiction programmes and face up to the challenge of overcoming their addictions. We do not have a specific checklist in considering concessions for prisoners such as release under a community return scheme, for example. There are a number of factors we consider, but we always pay particular attention and give credit to any prisoner with addiction issues or who had them in the past and has made efforts within the prison to tackle them. Essentially, we are talking about an issue of security - fighting the contraband and trying to prevent smuggling. There is also, as my colleague mentioned, the issue of rehabilitation. To incentivise prisoners, we give credit in assessing people for onward movement to open centres or even to external drug treatment facilities.