Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Much of what I wanted to say has been raised already and I am conscious that time is ticking against us. I want to say for the record and for our report that a couple of grey areas that need clarification have been highlighted in regard to temporary release and the delegated powers between the director general and the Secretary General. These things need to be tightened up. It is also very important that we put into our report the issue around the publishing of reports and the silencing of people who may come before committees. I am conscious there are three reports in regard to the Dóchas Centre that have not seen the light of day in some time. Transparency and openness are essential and anything that limits that is problematic.

One of the things I wanted to pick up on is the code of conduct. The code of conduct provides for consultation with a variety of groups, such as the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and others, and with representative groups like the IPRT and the Prison Officers Association, but it does not explicitly say there needs to be any consultation with prisoners themselves. As much as prison officers are living under a code of conduct or a code of ethics, prisoners will be living under the regime that this creates. In the same way I have always argued that there should be public consultation in regard to, for example, Garda regulations or Garda codes, I fully believe we should find a way – it should not be that hard - of conducting some sort of consultation with prisoners, and that needs to be explicitly named in the Bill. The Bill provides that a code of conduct can be done with anyone the Minister feels is relevant but that has the potential to end up being nobody. If we want to recognise that prisoners are living under this code of ethics, they need to be named explicitly at that point.

I do not really have any questions, which might move things along, but if anyone wants to respond, they should feel free to do so.