Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. They were detailed and informative. They also show that the Travelling community in the Prison Service are treated the same as they are in the community, or even worse. We have figures showing how high the population in the Prison Service is but do we know how many reoffend? Is there a figure for that, for both men and women? I would be interested in that. I am also interested in the link between petty crime leading to further crimes, relating to drugs or anything like that, after Travelling men and women go into prison and the effect that has due to linking in with other harder criminals within the prison system. What are the crimes that Traveller women end up in prison for? Are they petty crimes? I would be interested in the types of crimes that they are being put into prison for. Between the gate and linkage services there were approximately 12,600 referrals. Of that, the combined linkage and gate placements were 5,027. That is approximately 40% of those referrals going into education, employment, etc. Mr. Owens made several points about why Travellers coming out of prison do not engage with those services. How much linkage does the Irish Traveller Movement have with those members of the Travelling community that come out of prison? It looks like if they go to the referrals they are in the net but there are many of them who are not in the net. Is there any sort of capture after that situation? Is the recommendation for an effective complaints system in hand? Ms Ní Chinnéide said that the Prison Service and the Department of Justice should work together to ensure that the new internal prisoner complaint mechanism is introduced before the end of 2021. Is it in hand or is it imminent? What can we do as legislators to assist that being put into place? Those are my first few questions.