Ms Ethel Gavin:

Would it be more difficult to run prisons if there were no drugs? No, I do not believe so. If there were no drugs, we would have achieved the perfect prison. One would expect we would have achieved a highly motivated prisoner population at that point because they would not want drugs. In other words, we do not encourage drug-taking in prisons at all. It does not make our working environment better. As Mr. Black and my other colleagues have already said, we are encouraging prisoners to avail of the therapeutic services in place such as those provided by Merchants Quay Ireland. Methadone clinics also assist prisoners towards achieving their personal goal of giving up drugs. It would therefore not be easier at all, to my mind. It would be much easier if we had a drug-free environment.

The mental health training is a six-hour programme which every single governor in the system is encouraging our training liaison officers to make sure is part of the overall training plan so that every single officer gets the training in a short timeframe. We are very motivated towards ensuring that training need among our staff is satisfied.

Yes, there are many retirements but this correlates with the fact that many staff came in 30 years ago and have the opportunity now to leave. This is an unfortunate situation. Perhaps the closing of the training unit will consolidate resources for the short term in order that we can acknowledge the elderly within our prison and give them for the first time a unit specific to that category of prisoner. It is very difficult when people have to move but as the training unit is on the Mountjoy site, both staff and prisoners, as my colleague in operations has said, will be facilitated and I think the greater good will be achieved in closing the unit.