Ms Fíona Ní Chinnéide:

We strongly welcome the regular publication of education data by the ETBs and the Prison Service. In terms of mental health, we know from a question answered by the Minister in March that there were 1,200 people on the waiting list for access to a prison psychology service.

That is a third of the prison population. That is a population that has, in any case, a higher prevalence of mental health issues. Within that, one has members of the Traveller community who have much higher levels of self-harm and mental health issues. It is that intersectional piece that really needs to be examined.

We know that an additional sum of just over €1 million was assigned in the budget Estimates just now for the Prison Service to support increased provision of mental health services in prison. In part of our budget submission with Mental Health Reform, we had sought €5.5 million because that was our estimate of the need. That funding is certainly welcome but is probably not enough.

A positive measure is the establishment of the high-level task force on mental health, addictions and imprisonment established by the two Ministers across the Departments of Justice and Health, together with the two Ministers of State with responsibility for mental health and the national drugs strategy, respectively. It is that interagency piece which is probably the most hopeful, particularly their commitment to there being actions. The ethnic equality monitoring piece would be a very specific action that that task force might undertake.

On disability, the IPRT published a large-scale research report in 2020 on people with disabilities in prison. I wish to acknowledge the openness of the Irish Prison Service in letting the researchers in because the findings were quite dismaying. The service was very open and really wants to address this issue. The report examined disability across all four forums of physical, intellectual, sensory and psychosocial disabilities. Broadly, the recommendations were across the inappropriateness of the physical prison environment and what needs to happen there. On communications, it is about ensuring that people with disabilities understand the prison rules, for example, and are not at risk of unintentionally breaking prison rules and ending up being punished without really understanding what they are doing wrong. High emphasis should be put on awareness and training among staff. Again, this also comes back to this point of involving peers in the development and delivery of this training. I would be very happy to send a copy of this report to the joint committee following this meeting.