Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Following on from what was said earlier on about open prisons, I note Mr. Graham is in an open prison now, having spent time in the other services. I think 6% of prisoners are in open prisons in this State. To take the example of Finland, one third of prisoners are in open prisons there. I came across a number of people who had difficulty accessing open prisons when they went to prison. They had to wait until half their sentence had been served or for a particular period of time. Even then, from a Kerry perspective, Loughan House or Shelton Abbey are very difficult for families to access via public transport if they are coming from the south west in any event.

Mr. Mullins mentioned drug-related intimidation inside jails. Somebody who is in prison serving a sentence for careless driving causing death or something like that could be open to intimidation by drug gangs or whatever. It might be a good idea to get someone like that into an open prison as soon as possible. I am aware there are counter-arguments that can be made, for example, whether it means singling out more middle-class prisoners for special treatment. Does the panel have any view on that? We might look at opening up the possibility of getting people to open prisons faster or possibly even allowing a judge handing down a sentence to get the views of the prosecution, the defence and the Probation Service and get all sorts of reports to make that decision when sentence is being passed.

I cannot remember the other point I intended to make but I will come back to it.