Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is an opportunity to further this with other third level colleges. I know of examples in my constituency where people aged 19 or 20 go from living with their parents to being out. All of a sudden they get involved in drugs and a bad group and end up in prison. That could be for six months, 12 months, 18 months or two years.

I believe those people will make progress and while they will serve the time, they should be given an opportunity. I know there is an outside constituency almost saying we should throw away the keys but that is not solving anyone's problem. We are not teaching anybody any lessons in that sort of scenario. Years ago, people very much thought we should lock the door and throw away the key but if we want to teach anybody anything, we have to give them an opportunity to prove themselves.

If a prisoner has a background or history of being in and out of prison and a family member grasps the educational opportunities, is there any evidence that this goes back to the other members of the family? If one person says "I am after grasping this and look where I am now", do other family members get any sort of teaching from them on that?