Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There seems to be consensus across the board about the OPCAT ratification and the need for more independence of the inspectorate, when it is established, and having it under the remit of the Minister for Justice and all the budgets. Can the officials comment on the great concerns about all that?

Does Mr. Kelly think there should be a role for inspecting Garda stations? A similar body in the Six Counties has the power to inspect PSNI police stations. I attended a meeting of the criminal law committee of the Law Society where various concerns were expressed about what happens in Garda stations from the point of view of solicitors being there. Nothing seems to have been done about the concerns. Has Mr. Kelly an opinion on the matter?

I have heard what has been said about new prisons. Last week, we had a meeting with the visiting justice committee of the House of Commons. One of the facts to arise is that we have the lowest number of judges per 100,000 population in the EU, which is a situation that needs to be addressed. The justice committee visited Cloverhill Prison and the delegation expressed concern that there were a lot of trials taking place where prisoners leave jail and go into what a solicitor in Tralee, County Kerry, used to refer to as the fish tank to have their trial dealt with. There are an awful lot of sentences. The number of short sentences was a concern expressed by prison staff and some prisoners when we visited Mountjoy Prison earlier in the year. Perhaps judges should visit Mountjoy Prison and listen to what prison governors have to say about the uselessness and ineffectiveness of short sentences because when prisoners are released, they go back to being homeless, unemployed and usually to addiction so they do not achieve anything. When prisoners are sentenced to, say, six or seven months, no educational facilities are put in place during that time.

There has been a drift towards having a larger number of people on remand for the past 20 years and I think that the statistic is 40%. Since Covid there have been an awful lot more prisoners on remand in jails and, especially for more serious offences, they are being denied bail. The other options we explored in our meeting with the House of Commons committee were tagging and observing people, thus reducing the need to be in custody for longer sentences.

The average time it takes for serious trials to reach court is two years currently. Big concerns were expressed about that because that results in jails filling up. The matter should be addressed.

Recently five new judges were appointed and that news was heralded as a good achievement. I believe that we must appoint way more judges to cut through the backlog before we ever consider constructing more prisons.

A report has been done on conditions in the women's prison. The Department has not published it yet. It has led to the resignation of one of the members of the group that did the report. Is there any sign of that report being published?

When prisoners relate their concerns to the members of the visiting committee, in their experience have many governors' decisions been overturned on foot of representations the visiting committee makes on behalf of the prisoners they meet? What are the witnesses' views on what will happen under head 13 and the new prisoner visiting committees? What kind of experience, qualifications and resources should their members have? Should there be legal back-up? Should they be paid?