Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 8 March 2017
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality
Penal Reform: Discussion (Resumed)
9:00 am
Mr. Michael Donnellan:
We have set out in our strategy that we want to develop a therapeutic community. That will not happen in the short term due to our current staffing issues. We hope that we could develop a 40-bed therapeutic community in the beginning of 2018, in the area that was occupied by children in St. Patrick's Institution, which has been significantly developed. We are working with a number of providers and hope that we could develop a therapeutic community model in prisons. It has never been done in Ireland. We have visited a number across Europe and we think that there is a real benefit but we have to wait to get the staff.