Ms Ciara Kirrane:

Yes. Trying to get those kinds of prisoners home would be a concern. We know that, if prisoners have contact with their family, they are less likely to re-offend and there is data from the UK to suggest there is a 39% decrease in re-offending if prisoners have had contact with their family throughout the period of imprisonment. That is why we would like to have people returning to serve their sentences in Ireland if they so wish. When they are very far away, like in Australia, that makes a lot of sense. The bigger numbers are in Britain and even though it is only a short enough trip across the water, the costs for families to visit are still immense. I dealt with somebody who was undertaking a trip to Scotland with her children to visit her partner, the children's father, and accommodation alone was £500 with the cost of the ferry on top of that. There are huge costs involved when one is bringing children.

There are different trends and factors we observe when it comes to concerns about conditions in different countries. Deputy Crowe mentioned particularly hard countries such as those in Latin America and Africa where there is real hardship. That is what one would expect. Countries in Europe can have restrictive remand conditions. When people are on remand, they will have more restriction than they would have in Ireland. Talking to a family member can be challenging. It can be difficult for the family to visit when the prisoner is on remand. That is a trend in many European countries and this is before the person has even been convicted. That is particularly difficult.

The prison system in the US is particularly hard. Conditions are difficult because there is overcrowding and the sentences are long. That is a hard thing.