Mr. John Clinton:

I will start with the first issue. The staffing issue is very obvious and if one does not have the staff, there is a problem. As I stated, we designed an annualised hours package so we would know how many hours we had within the system and what we had to work with. It was designed with the belief that we would have classes of recruits always in training to match retirements. That is manpower planning. If they know 30 people can retire in October this year, we should have 30 people in training, ready to walk out and readily replace them. There are obvious issues around that and we only have one training centre. The maximum we could probably get is a number amounting to two classes at a time. There are difficulties all the time in that regard but we should have a system in place with recruits always in training, with proper manpower planning for the amount of people who can go out. This can be checked fairly well as they know from when a person joins the day he or she can leave. In the early 1970s there was much recruitment, as there was in the early 1990s, as it was matched to the opening of prisons etc. One can reasonably predict manpower planning in that regard. It is not rocket science and it should be done all the time. I hope that addresses the staffing element of the question. We are not happy with the current position but it is what it is because we only have one training college. The course takes a certain amount of time before a prison officer emerges. We should always have ongoing recruitment to match retirements. In that way we will keep a far better flow of staff and resources on the ground. Everything is resource-based and there is no doubt about that.

The Deputy asked about people in restricted regimes because they ask to be there and whether that can be addressed. It can be addressed. There is intelligence on prisoners within the system to know who are the gang people. They know who they are when they are arrested in the outside community and when they are put into prison. In the British system they have eight units where they keep people in closed supervision. One is in Woodhill and they are all category A prisoners. We do not use that type of classification in the Irish prisons but they are the types who are gang leaders who cause all the problems. It is that type of prisoner. Rather than having the person on the other end of the scale - who is forced and pressurised all the time - in the restricted regime, we should turn it the other way around and put those who cause the problems under restricted regimes and closed supervision. I am not talking about solitary confinement but rather having those types of people in isolation units where they cannot put pressure on the more vulnerable people within our system. The prison system should be there to help the person who wants to be helped and not the other way around. The person with power in a gang should not control a prison. The vulnerable person should be at the centre of our thoughts in the prison system all the time.