Dr. Ciara O'Connell:

To follow on from that, at the Office of the Inspector of Prisons that has been a hot item that we have been looking at throughout all of the Covid-19 pandemic. We inspected all the prisons last year through the Covid-19 lens and I can say that maybe five, six or seven times, we were making recommendations on access to information for foreign nationals and non-English-speaking people in prison.

Resettlement is also an area in which that is strongly needed. When people are waiting, when they are talking to Irish Association for Social Inclusion Opportunities, IASIO, officers and when they are trying to get out, there is no way for them to communicate about where they are supposed to go. This has therefore become central to our work. In every inspection now, we give a small booklet to the prisoners to share the findings. It comes in ten languages.

We have information booklets for prisoners in eight languages. We are starting to survey prisoners using digital tablets. It comes in ten languages. Everything we do is to try to push that because our foreign national prison population will only grow. The recommendations we have been making we cannot make enough. We should definitely all continue to make that recommendation.