Ms Oonagh McPhillips:

I am grateful for the opportunity to meet with the committee in relation to the 2020 Justice and Prisons Votes. I thank the Comptroller and Auditor General and his office for their work on this. The Chairman has introduced the team. With his permission, I will share my time with Ms McCaffrey.

Vote 24, the justice Vote, is one of six in the Vote group and covers a wide remit of activity, both in the Department and a number of agencies in the justice sector. In 2020, as the Comptroller and Auditor General said, there were five expenditure programmes with 50 individual subheads. The Vote structure was realigned substantially in 2021 to take account of the Department’s major restructuring and the 2020 transfer of our integration and equality responsibilities to the expanded Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. These changes have rationalised the Vote’s structure and reduced the number of programmes from five to two - criminal justice and civil justice.

Any review of 2020 must take account of the pandemic and, like the rest of the world, managing the impact of Covid-19 on our staff and business has been a central focus at all levels in the Department and the whole justice sector ever since, perhaps nowhere more so than in the prisons, which the director general will speak to shortly. The management of the pandemic in the Department has been led by the management board and the Covid-19 response management group, supported by our specialist occupational health and safety unit. This work included ensuring business continuity for the public services we provide, introducing remote working, onboarding more than 700 new staff over the past two years and safeguarding and supporting all our colleagues, including those serving abroad and those who had to remain in the workplace in front-line and public-facing roles.

Our criminal and civil governance teams communicated regularly and consistently with our 25 agencies to support them in responding dynamically and safely to the evolving public health restrictions. It is a credit to the professionalism and commitment of the whole organisation that, working together, we succeeded in doing this and much more through the last two years.

There was also a significant impact on specific areas of the business. The legislative teams supported colleagues in the Department of Health in drafting legislation and regulations, including the necessary Garda powers. The restrictions on international travel and checks on people arriving into the State meant many dynamic changes for staff of the border management unit at Dublin Airport, including supporting mandatory hotel quarantine. The pandemic impacted the provision of immigration services to our customers, necessitating the temporary extension of immigration permissions through 2020 and 2021.

Innovations were also introduced, including the first ever online citizenship ceremony in 2020 and more followed in 2021. Under the Department’s IT strategy, we are investing in developing much-needed digital systems, but the prolonged need to either restrict or stagger staff attendance in offices increased processing times, particularly in some high-volume immigration areas. This situation improved as restrictions lifted and staff could return to offices. We took the opportunity to re-engineer and streamline processes and this has been having a positive effect in recent months.

Members will appreciate that the recent essential work to welcome and process the refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine has necessitated the redeployment of experienced officials to staff the one-stop shop and reception centre. This currently operates from 8 a.m. to approximately 4 a.m., seven days a week, at Dublin Airport, as well as at offices in Cork, Limerick and Rosslare to facilitate those arriving through other ports of entry. This whole-of-government operation has received and processed over 25,000 people under the EU's temporary protection directive over the last two months. The compassion and professionalism of colleagues involved is a great credit to them and reflects the response of the whole country to Ukraine.

Returning to Covid, as the country entered the first lockdown in March 2020, the Department was acutely aware of the huge difficulties and fear that restricting people’s movement could bring to those at risk of domestic abuse. Colleagues quickly developed and implemented an inter-agency plan, including the Still Here public awareness campaign. This was a collaboration with front-line services in the public sector and in civil society in order to reassure victims that the practical supports they needed would still be available. Additional financial supports were provided to front-line NGO partners and measures were put in place across the sector, including through An Garda Síochána’s Operation Faoiseamh. The Judiciary and the Courts Service also prioritised domestic abuse cases and provided for remote hearings for protection orders where necessary. The Irish Prison Service risk-assessed those being released from prisons and the Legal Aid Board established a helpline to provide prompt legal advice and legal representation in court where needed. The success of An Garda Síochána’s community engagement and policing strategy through the pandemic has rightly been recognised and I know the committee also recently heard from the Policing Authority about its important oversight work, which has had significant value in maintaining public trust.

There are a large number of agencies in this Vote but I want to mention in particular Forensic Science Ireland, as its long-planned, state-of-the-art laboratory HQ is nearing the final stages of construction. I am pleased to report that despite the impact of the restrictions on construction activities in the earlier phases of the project, the lab is now on-track for completion this year within its budget of €99.5 million. This new facility will be one of the most sophisticated pieces of public infrastructure ever constructed in this country and will provide the hard-working staff of Forensic Science Ireland, with a high-spec, purpose-built facility, achieving the highest standards for evidence processing, analysis and storage. It represents a very significant investment in our criminal justice system and the future of the Forensic Science Ireland.

I will now hand over to Ms McCaffrey.