Ms Caron McCaffrey:

We are hugely proud of our prison education units and the work they do with men and women in our custody on a daily basis and instilling a love for lifelong learning. We know that person will then bring this back to his or her community and, in the case of a parent, back to his or her children.

The demographics of the prison population are interesting. The statistics show that 70% of our population are early school-leavers. I did an exercise at one point, which found that the average school-leaving age of people in custody two years ago was 14 years. For many men and women who come into the prison system, their first meaningful engagement with education is in a prison school. It is the first time they discover that they have skills or talents, and they have really creative talents. Anybody who has been in a prison will have seen the artwork and creative writing that is done. People go on to do their junior certificate, leaving certificate and university courses, including the Open University. There are a lot of people in our system who have real talent. The really regrettable thing is that they have only discovered those talents within a prison education setting.

From my perspective, the issue is one of education and how we can keep people engaged in the education system within their community. We know that one of the factors that can lead to a person engaging in crime is disengagement from the educational system. We also know that one of the dynamic risk factors we need to address to ensure somebody desists from crime is to give people educational qualifications and employability skills so they can go on to further education or employment in the community.

Mr. Graham mentioned some of the work being done at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. That is really incredible in making third level education more welcoming and open to ex-offenders. Dr. Séamus Taylor has been a leader in this field by breaking down some of the barriers and allowing people to see themselves as third level students while they are in custody and when they leave custody. I would also point to the University of Cork, which co-delivers some modules on some courses in Cork Prison where the classroom is made up of people from the community and people who are in custody. Education can really unlock huge potential in people while they are custody. It can also help people to discover talents that they have.

There is also a piece around self-worth, self-value and self-belief. That is what is being instilled in our prison education schools. Prison education is provided by the Department of Education. We have 220 full-time equivalent teachers and we are very grateful for that investment. We are also doing some work at the moment with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Simon Harris, in looking at pathways to apprenticeships. We could certainly align what we are delivering at a prison level, particularly in the work training area, with pathways to apprenticeships and further education when people are released.