Mary White (Fianna Fail)
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Ms McCabe is very welcome and I am sure she does an excellent job in her position as Prisoner Ombudsman. I listened to other members when they were asking questions and I would like them to listen to me asking mine. In December we visited Maghaberry Prison. Some of my colleagues in my party were aghast and asked me why I was doing that but because I had faith in the former Cabinet Minister, Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív, he invited me to accompany him and I did so. I was shocked and horrified by what I heard from the different groups we met. One of the groups we met had just come off the dirty protest and they said that some of the prison officers were using sexual connotations. I will not repeat what they told us but it was to the effect that now that they were off the dirty protest they will be into this.

We also visited Marian Price. It is beyond me why she is being held in that prison. She is physically unable to move. As Ms McCabe is aware, her sister Dolours died a few days ago. Marian told us that when she was being sent to the hospital for X-rays she was double handcuffed. Having met the woman I know she is not able to run away but the way she is being kept there is cruel. This is the issue Deputy Ó Cuív is concerned about, namely, people being held there because they had a record in the past. If the Government in the North has an issue with them, it should be brought to due legal process.

When I returned I advised my colleagues who had told me I should not go to visit the prison. On 17 December my observations were vindicated by Chief Inspector Brendan McGuigan, who issued his report on Maghaberry Prison, and everything we had heard on our visit two weeks earlier was in his report. It referred to violent bullying, intimidation, overcrowding and significant weaknesses in the system. He criticised the system in Maghaberry Prison.

In as brief a reply as possible I would like to know what Ms McCabe intends to do about that. When I visited the prison I was stand-offish about the people I would meet because I am totally supportive of the peace process, but I was shocked by what the prisoners told us, and it was vindicated within a week in Mr. Brendan McGuigan's report. I will not labour the point. We have to get to the bottom of this to keep the peace process in place. That is the reason I and my colleagues visited the prison. As briefly as she can do so I ask Ms McCabe to outline what she intends to do about Mr. Brendan McGuigan's report on Maghaberry Prison.