Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A reduction in those waiting times and waiting lists would make a real impact on people. When they leave prison, they will be less likely to reoffend if they get the help they need in the place where they are imprisoned.

Something else came up that is connected to this. I was at a presentation late last year by the Irish Penal Reform Trust, IPRT, on what happens when people leave prison. They were not getting the appropriate referrals, whether that was into addiction or mental health services, housing, or even having social welfare payments ready for them when they left prison. Often, they were leaving without getting any of those services. This came up quite regularly at the presentation and many contributions from the floor indicated that was the case. Is there more that can be done for people when they leave prison so they do so in the best place possible to stop them from being in a position to reoffend?

I will tease out an issue that may also be connected. There has been an increase, and any increase is always welcome, in Dormant Accounts-funded social disadvantage measures. That is up by 88.05%, which is a huge increase. Can anything else be done to help people who are going back to socially disadvantaged areas with the same problems - sometimes worse - they had when they went into prison? They are going back to the same areas where they committed the crimes to begin with. Can anything be done there?