Mr. Stephen O'Connor:

It is also worth remembering that at the start of the pandemic our teachers had never previously had the opportunity to develop a technological approach to education and use many of the apps and devices available to them for security reasons. When the pandemic arose, it got us all thinking that this was a new situation and we had to respond to it. The word people use these days is "pivot". The prison teachers did so magnificently. In Dublin we enlisted the support of the curriculum development unit from the City of Dublin Education and Training Board, which provided the most wonderful range of courses in technology such that our teachers are now playing a leading role in Dublin city in the development of technology enhanced learning, TEL. They have done that in a short period of two years. They put a great deal of effort into retaining to deliver these apps. We hope to expand the demands on the Irish Prison Service over the next five years to become leaders in Europe in the way we deliver that. We are engaged in conversations with other jurisdictions on the way they approach the delivery of in-cell learning. The technology exists for us to do this. It is a question of us having the will and resources to do it but there is no question that we can do it.

I take on board the director general’s point that it will never be a substitute for face-to-face learning. There is something about two or three people together in a room communicating. It makes it a human experience. It is the human transaction that goes on in education that keeps people in education. Many people go to education for social reasons. If one goes into a prison education centre, one will often see students and teachers having a cup of tea at the end of class. That is as essential a part of their learning as anything they study in books or course material.

Although there are many challenges, there is space to have hope for all those people who are coming into our prisons because we see the transformation that takes place in individuals. Every teacher in a prison will be able to tell a story of a student who came in not being able to read and write and going on to achieve academically at a very high level. It is not the norm, and I do not want to mislead the Deputy on that, but it is an example of what can happen with the correct policies, approaches and resourcing of education.