Ms Saoirse Brady:

Regarding the autism piece, and for those who have not already listened to Senator Lynn Ruane's podcast around voices in prison, one of the things talked about is a project by AsIAm, the autism charity, put on hold due to Covid-19. That was a huge issue for people with autism within the penal system, many of whom might be undiagnosed. AsIAm members are the experts in the area so we hope their project in the prison system will be up and running again. The Making Rights Real for People with Disabilities in Prison report identified that if people with sensory issues who may have neurodivergent conditions, have to share a cell this can be very overwhelming for them and the noises from other people, the lack of personal space can cause them quite a bit of trauma. Single cell occupancy is something we have recommended and mentioned before. The numbers in prison at the moment are the highest they have been in a very long time. We saw that the numbers reduced dramatically during Covid-19 for various reasons. We have more than 4,000 people within the prison system. I think it is a 7% increase on the same week last year. That is of concern. The numbers were starting to go in the right direction. We were starting to see people serving more community service orders and other diversion mechanisms being put in place. The more people who are in prison, the more we have to think about those with disabilities and how we are accommodating them and addressing any of the issues they might have.

Regarding the sharing of data between different agencies, GDPR is the thing that I imagine a lot of the agencies would mention. When they are collecting the data, they would have to look at putting protocols in place and whether or not they are getting consent from people to share their information with other agencies. I do not see how it could be done without that. That is something that could perhaps be explored by some of those agencies.