Frances Black (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentation. I wanted to ask a little more about the Villabona project in Spain to find out how it works. Mr. Clinton said that a prison estate is divided up into units for therapy and education. How does that work?

On a more general level, it must be so hard for prison officers to be working in such a chaotic environment, particularly in the context of addiction. I have seen myself how difficult that can be and the burnout levels must be very high among prison officers. I have worked as a therapist in a treatment centre but there would have only been about 20 clients there and a team of highly skilled therapists. It is quite chaotic and one has to work in a very skilled way to deal with the chaos of addiction and its impact. There is a requirement for a lot of supervision and so forth. It must be very difficult for prison officers to be dealing with that without the skills to deal with the impact of addiction. I am aware that resources are very limited but could modules be introduced into the prison officer's training so that they can deal with the impact of addiction on themselves? It is very easy to get burnt out. Would it be possible to provide more supervision and more support in that area? I understand that resources are tight but I would imagine that if there was some kind of an understanding of how to deal with addiction and mental health problems, it might help. It might help to reduce the level of violence within the prison system. I hope that makes sense.