Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I want to re-emphasise the point I made before. It is unacceptable to use solitary confinement as a punishment. It is a form of deprivation of association with people. It is a form of sensory deprivation and the reason it is happening is because the prisoner has engaged in indiscipline or has broken prison discipline rules. There must be other methods, I would have thought, of ensuring that prisoners can be disciplined. Obviously prisoners do break rules in prison but surely there are other mechanisms that can be used to punish them, such as taking away some of the few liberties they have or reducing visits or whatever. It would be interesting to hear what the Prison Service has to say in respect of it. I am sure it has ideas as to how a disruptive prisoner can be dealt with as opposed to just locking them up and denying them association.