Mr. Fergal Black:

I oversee the national violence reduction unit, which we established in 2018. Our unit mirrors similar units in the UK, which are called close supervision centres. Today, we have seven prisoners in the national violence reduction unit. These are people who have a real propensity for violence while in prison. They have demonstrated escalating violence and a number of them have killed while in prison but we are managing them. Importantly, we set up the unit to develop a relational approach to manage the risks. We have an intensive level of staff, who are co-managed by a governor and a senior psychologist. We use a two-pronged approach and a psychologically informed approach. Each officer is assigned one of the prisoners on each side of the roster to engage with as a personal officer. Of the six prisoners who have been in the unit for a considerable period, five of them when they entered the unit had been on "barrier handling" in the prison they came from, which means our staff had to wear full riot gear in order to deal with them. None of those prisoners have required barrier handling for six months to a year. In fact, we only had to use barrier handling for one prisoner in the last two years.

We use a relational approach to such an extent that some of the prisoners, when their cell door is opened in the morning, will say they are not coming out because they know from the way they are feeling that they are more than likely going to assault a member of staff, which they do not want to do. We consider such self-awareness a real success. So we are managing people but the unit is not for people who have psychotic episodes, schizophrenia or severe and enduring mental illness. The unit is for people where we are trying to address the risk factors associated with that real high propensity for violence.

As the director general said, I am also chairing a group that is looking at developing a specific unit for people who are either awaiting admission to the Central Mental Hospital, CMH, or, more important, returning from the new CMH. We are very fortunate that a fabulous facility has been built in Portrane to replace the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum. While it has presented challenges, for example, in recruiting staff, we are working through those. What we want to do is ensure that when someone goes to the CMH to receive treatment, he or she will be stabilised there. Staff there can compel people to take medication and they are in a good place. If they still have a propensity for violence, they will be returned to the national violence reduction unit, NVRU. Most will be stable but when they return to the general population, many of them will probably decompensate very quickly because, if I am honest, there can be access to drugs and other intoxicants.

We want to create an environment similar to the NVRU ethos in which people who come back are supported in their recovery and intensive staffing is provided. We have our colleagues from the National Forensic Mental Health Service and our nursing psychology staff and we have an occupational therapy, OT, manager coming on board. It is a place where we can support those people. Some will then be able to move into general population and some will probably end up spending the rest of their sentences there because they need that supportive environment.

We are at an advanced stage of discussions with our colleagues in the National Forensic Mental Health Service. We have identified a location. We have a bit of upgrading work to do but it is a facility that will accommodate approximately 50 people in custody. We would see there being 17 people on each of the three floors. Two of the floors would be for people coming back from the CMH so we can start to get more admissions and we are able to bring them back to an area where, as I said, they can maintain their recovery. The other floor would be for people who are somewhat unstable and awaiting admission into the CMH. In terms of violence and people with severe and enduring mental illness, we have had the national violence reduction unit open for three years now. We hope next year to have the mental health unit operating in conjunction with the National Forensic Mental Health Service.