Mr. Jim Mitchell:

While that is a stark statistic, the projection that 107 prison officers will be assaulted by prisoners in 2017 is even worse from our perspective. The State Claims Agency has examined the figures and projected that there will be two assaults per week in the Prison Service as a workplace. It is as if everyone working in this building knew there was a good chance that they or one of their colleagues would be assaulted. The stark reality is that it happens twice a week. The other side of the coin is that our people deliver a service afterwards. People have to be incentivised to view their jobs in a good, positive and productive manner. We have looked at the question of penal reform from a positive perspective because it is a practical issue for us. Some conflicting issues, such as a lack of staff, have been mentioned. The significant problems with overcrowding that persisted in previous years have been alleviated for the time being. However, something like a change in bail legislation could easily overturn that. The tenuous and precarious nature of the job is a real issue for every prison officer who goes to work every day. The Prison Service statistics we have quoted bear that out. The validity of international comparisons hinges on the kinds of regimes we look at. An international comparison with Spain, for example, might not look at the Villabona project to which Mr. Clinton referred. While the job we do is extraordinary, for want of a better word, it is done by people who view it as a job and who go to work because they have mortgages to pay and families at home. Their ability to do the job can be destroyed permanently, as I said earlier.