Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It just so happens that an Oireachtas football team is going into Mountjoy Prison today to play a match, so it is appropriate that the witnesses are here to discuss this topic. I remember reading an article by Neil Gaiman in The Guardian some years ago in which he wrote that the prison service in the US had been outsourced to private providers. When an attempt is made to assess what the capacity needs of the prison service will be in 15 years' time, the literacy rates of ten-year-olds are examined. There is a correlation between the literacy rates of ten-year-olds in any given jurisdiction and the need that will emerge 15 years later for prison places.

The work the witnesses do is crucial. What happens in the Prison Service reflects wider society, and the witnesses are trying to grapple with that. As has been said, we have issues in respect of educational disadvantage that are not the fault of those in the Prison Service; its members are just trying to deal with them. Having such a number of people in the prison system with poor rates of educational attainment tells me two things. One is that some people have been forced down the road of crime by poverty. The other is that middle-class people who commit crimes do not end up in prison. It is important to say there is inequality there as well.

I am interested in the literacy perspective and the comments on the need for in-cell tuition.In the Prison Service, there is obviously a need to balance the security needs of the prison with the digital needs of education. In wider society we have a functional illiteracy rate of about 17.9%, which means one in six adults is functionally illiterate. While people in that situation may be able to get through their day and hide their literacy levels, for example, by pretending they cannot see something because they forgot their glasses or whatever, when it comes to filling out forms or engaging properly in Irish society, people who are functionally illiterate will struggle. Equally, if the rate of functional illiteracy is 17.9% in wider society, I can only assume it is much higher among the prison population. Surely it is fundamental to identify what that level is to enable us to deal with these literacy and numeracy issues. Do the witnesses find that there is a need for more enjoyable hooks to act as a gateway to get people to address their numeracy and literacy needs? Learning to read is not fun. Addressing literacy deficiencies is not going to be fun. Art, for example, is going to be more enjoyable, as are activities such as sport and drama.

On literacy rates, how can we get an assessment of what the needs are in this regard? It was mentioned that literacy permeates the curriculum. How far are we from in-cell tuition? People in prison are dealing with a level of trauma and humiliation, thinking about what is going to happen to them after their sentences have been served and wondering how society is going to view them. There may be a sense of pointlessness in this respect. People might think they are always going to be tarred with the taint of the time they spent inside prison. How is it possible to break through those types of barriers?

I suggest to the Chair that it might be a good use of members' time to visit a prison, with the required co-operation, and observe at first-hand what is being done there.

Education is a great liberator. It changes lives. It is the only thing that has been proved to break people out of poverty. Surely at the most intense level of need is when the resources and the imagination of the State needs to be invested so that it can be the great liberator, not just at the walls of the prison but also about the walls of the mind as well.