Ms Caron McCaffrey:

That is a particular focus of our continuous professional development for prison officers. That is very much because of the vulnerabilities within our prison population. The Deputy will have heard some of the statistics relating to mental health issues and of addiction within the prison population. It is very important that our staff are equipped with the skills to be in a position to assist those prisoners.

I also chair a national suicide and crime prevention group and every time there is an incident of self-harm or a suicide within a prison, that is reviewed locally to see what happened and what lessons could be learned. These, then, are all reviewed nationally, to ensure that if there is action we need to take, we take it.

I very much need to mention the Samaritans because we have an excellent Samaritans programme operating within our prisons. We have prisoners who are trained as listeners in all of our prisons. They are available 24-7 to help a person in distress. Because of Covid-19, when we learned that not having a phone in a cell was very difficult in helping people to continue to contact their families; we are now putting phones into all of our cells. This process of in-cell telephony is almost complete. That allows prisoners to contact the Samaritans from their cells 24-hours a day. We have seen, since we put those phones into the cells, a significant increase in the number of calls to the Samaritans. That is a good sign because people who need help can get it, are looking for help through the telephone, and are taking that opportunity.

We are very cognisant of the needs and the vulnerabilities within our prison population and of supporting our staff and addressing those needs. That can also be very impactful on our own staff.

This week is mental health week in the Prison Service throughout the estate. We have a programme of activities in all of our prisons focusing on the mental health of staff and of prisoners. This is an area of particular concern and focus for us.

On modernisation, I mentioned that there has been significant modernisation of the prison estate since the 1990s. We are just completing a new male wing in Limerick Prison, which is partially open, together with a new female wing. That has eliminated slopping-out with the exception of the E block in Portlaoise Prison, where today we have nine people in custody. We are almost there with respect to the elimination of slopping-out. The Deputy is completely correct in that it is not appropriate for anybody to have to slop-out within our service, let alone somebody who has a mental illness. We are very pleased in that regard.

I mentioned that we are doing everything we can regarding accessibility. There are accessible cells within our prisons but the difficulty with the older parts of the estate is that there are very narrow spiral staircases and narrow corridors, which I am sure the Deputy has seen himself-----