Dr. Pauline Conroy:

They are concerned they have their tracksuits and their matching sneakers. If those are lost they seriously want them back. They ask for very little. It is only occasionally they ask for more serious things like opportunities for workshops, time out of their cell or opportunities for the whole family to visit them, which is not possible at the moment because the most important prison rules have been suspended since July 2020.

The suspension of the prison rules means neither the prison staff nor the governor have the right to offer prisoners the opportunities to which they are entitled. This is quickly visible to visiting committee members. Sometimes the governor will signal there are issues with A, B, C and D and that he or she would like us to look into them, or a prison officer will say he or she is worried about prisoner X and would we mind calling by to see where he is at. We are not social workers but we can give a report on whether that prisoner needs extra attention or maybe should not be in the prison at all. Maybe he should be in the Central Mental Hospital with a severe difficulty that cannot be resolved inside the prison. He cannot receive the medication in a prison that he would be given in the Central Mental Hospital. Those prisoners often remain hallucinating, unable to communicate, their speech is impaired and they can barely tell you what is wrong with them, yet they are in the prison. When meeting those prisoners one knows what the job of a prison visiting committee is, which is to signal they should not be there and they must have special attention. The idea of this Bill, under which prison visiting committee members would not be paid, would not have their reports published and would not visit too often, is quite unacceptable.