Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 17 January 2019

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 21 - Prisons

9:00 am

Photo of Bobby AylwardBobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to talk about escort duties and safety for the prison warders who are going on escort duties. I am talking about prisoners going out to dentists, hospitals, doctors and so on. I was contacted by prison warders over an issue. I suppose we cannot debate it here either. It happened in Dublin, a stabbing incident of which I suppose Ms McCaffrey is well aware. A prison warder was stabbed and the unions representing prison staff were not very happy with the response they got. It was all hush hush. I do not want to say too much about it because there is probably a court case or something like that going on. What is in place? I am talking about that individual case because it is the only one I know of and I received complaints from prison warders whom I know personally. It could happen again. Why was it allowed to happen? I am talking about health and safety for both the prisoner and the prison warder. There was a lot of concern about what happened.

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