Ms Caron McCaffrey:

I will take the issue of recruitment on a broad level. We have escalated our recruitment plans in terms of getting in staff. We got €6 million in funding for new prison officers in the budget, which is great. It is the first increase over our baseline that we have had in a very significant amount of time. We are very grateful to get that support. Specifically, what those new officers will do is help us to deal with the increasing prison population. With an increasing prison population comes increasing requirements for people to attend court and to attend hospital for appointments. We also have all of those court appearances and hospital appointments that were deferred because of Covid that are now having to be made. What we are finding is that a lot of our prison staff who are there to provide services to prisoners in the prisons need to leave to conduct escorts and that is very frustrating for the staff and prisoners involved and for us as an organisation. We want to do as much as we can while people are in our care to give them the best opportunities when they are released.

We have gotten sanction for an extra 100 staff. This year we plan to recruit in excess of 250 prison officers. We think outside the box and are inventive in terms of our recruitment strategies. We are looking at how we can get people in as quickly as possible. We have just closed a recruitment campaign to which more than 2,500 people applied. That is the highest ever number of people looking to come to work in the Prison Service. What is really interesting is that for many of those who are coming into the Prison Service, it is a second career and they are coming in with a really strong desire to make a difference. They believe in the power of change and that everyone deserves a second chance, which is great. We had a big graduation ceremony this week, with 120 people graduating from South East Technological University, SETU, with a higher certificate in custodial care. As soon as we see the blockages, we do not rest but see how we can get around them. It is the same in other areas of the service. Dr. Regan has been very inventive too, so if we are not attracting people because we do not have sponsorship, we go and get sponsorship. Every suggestion that Dr. Regan and her team comes up with is considered. There is an absolute willingness to support them because we want to get in place the best staff we can in our prisons to make sure we can provide services.