Ms Saoirse Brady:

We see this particularly in women's prisons but also in men's prisons. Those therapeutic supports are essential. We do not have a situation at the moment where everyone in prison - particularly those in for short periods of time - can access the therapeutic supports they need or even get assessed to see if they have experienced that trauma.

I will, however, give a couple of examples of really good things that are working. There is a Traveller mothers in prison project in the Dóchas Centre for women. It deals with this issue. It works with Traveller women whose children may be in State care or with family members, or they may have their baby with them because that is an issue that is happening more and more in prisons, unfortunately. What they are discovering in those discussions is that women did not know what domestic violence was. They thought it was something that happened to the general public. They did not know what trauma was either. Many of them have experienced homelessness and for the first time are seeing themselves as mothers because of the work Barnardos is doing with them. Supports like this can really help if they are properly funded and particular groups of women or men are given dedicated one-to-one supports in addition to group therapy sessions.

In terms of technology, the prison system is overstretched at the moment. We were in Mountjoy a few weeks ago. We saw that it has video booths. I think there are 16 of them. They are going to be used for court appearances. We would like to see them used more for family contact. There is a commitment in the Prison Service's strategic plan about trying to roll out more supports using video technology. It happened more during the pandemic and was successful. It means that children do not have to go into a high-security prison setting which can often traumatise them.

We recently published a book by children of prisoners for children of prisoners. I have a copy I will give the Senator afterwards. She might be interested in it.

There are things that could be done. What we really need to do is reduce the number of people going into prison for mental health issues. That is happening more and more. One of the things we talk about in our pre-budget submission, which I urge members to read, is diversion from prison. It works really well in Cloverhill. There is a model there whereby the prison in-reach and court liaison service has diverted two prison-loads of people from prison. We need to see that replicated throughout the country. It has been recommended by the Office of the Inspector of Prisons. The previous Government's mental health and addiction task force also talked about rolling it out nationwide. Those are the types of things that would really help to reduce the number of people in prison for mental health issues in particular.