Mr. Adam Harris:

In the context of the piece around the experience of disabled people within the prison system, an important point the commission would want to make is that public bodies, such as the Irish Prison Service, are bound by the public sector duty. That means they have an active duty to promote human rights and equality. That obviously means that prisoners with a disability should not be subjected to discrimination, treated less favourably or be in environments that do not meet their needs on the grounds of the fact that a person has a disability. We know where older or disabled people are in prison, they need to be accommodated in accessible facilities and such accessibility obligations extend not just to individual cells, but to the wider prison environment as well.

I suppose it is not just about physical access; it is about things like access to Irish Sign Language interpretation, incomplete information on rights, ill-treatment by prisoners or staff who may not understand a disabled person's experiences. This obviously constitutes discriminatory treatment. In addition, health services within our prisons are under-resourced, despite the fact - as we have been saying throughout the hearing - that we know there are more people with psychosocial disabilities within these settings. We would recognise that there have been very good recommendations from agencies like the Mental Health Commission, the Office of the Inspector of Prisons and the high-level task force in terms of what we can do around supporting people with mental health or addiction challenges within the prison system. As is often the case in these areas, it is about implementation, follow-through and resourcing if there really is to be any difference.

One thing we are particularly concerned about is that in recent years, prisoners with psychosocial disabilities have experienced long delays in transferring to external mental health facilities due a lack of available beds and that shows the ecosystem piece of this as well.

I refer to two recommendations the commission has made. One is on the Irish Prison Service adapting and reconfiguring prisons to ensure accessibility in line with universal design principles. The second is that the State would significantly invest in mental health services in prisons, which includes addressing staffing and environmental issues, establishing specialised units for prisoners with psychosocial disabilities and improving clinical care pathways. The final piece then is on what can the committee do. The message we want to keep returning to today is the really important need to move on these various pieces of legislation.

In addition, something we have not mentioned yet is while we await the passage of the Inspection of Places of Detention Bill 2022, there is nothing in that delay that prevents us from moving ahead and ratifying the optional protocol on the convention against torture. That would provide a very important external independent monitoring element to this and we would really urge the State to move forward and do that. Along, of course, with the promise of ratification of the optional protocol of the UNCRPD.