Mr. Mark Kelly:

I will respond on a couple of the specific issues raised by Senator Ruane. I thank her for the summation of the consensus around independence. I highlight that also on that list I would have head 6(2), which specifically proposes that the future funds of my office premises, facilities and services would all be provided by the Minister for Justice. It is quite detailed and prescriptive.

She asked about protections, exemptions and privileges, and what explicitly that would mean. Flowing from OPCAT, there is a concern to make sure that people carrying out this monitoring function are themselves properly protected, but also that sensitive information we might be gathering is properly protected. For example, if we are involved in the investigation of deaths in custody, we might have extremely sensitive information. We always have sensitive information relating to the reason that a person is in prison, for example. The protections should include immunity from search and seizure of documents, baggage and so on. It certainly should not be the case that when Dr. O'Connell or I enter or leave a prison, a prison officer can require to inspect papers we have with us. We provide more detail in that regard in our submission.

On the question of vulnerability, absolutely. Mr. Herrick referred to the report of the Garda Inspectorate on custody, which is very good. It is based on the standards developed by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, CPT, for which I have been working in various capacities for the best part of three decades. In recent years, the committee has been examining the need to take a trauma-informed approach to monitoring, particularly in prisons, and explicitly to take into account trauma that may have been experienced by people before they come into prison.

When I said I was in the new prison in Limerick, which is an empty building, I should also have said that I was on E wing and I spent time there with the women who are currently detained in very poor conditions. It is obvious in Limerick Prison, as it is in prisons holding women throughout Europe that many of those people who have ended up in prison have a history in which they have been victims themselves of domestic violence and other forms of trauma. They carry that with them when they come into prison. They cannot just be treated in an identical way. In our monitoring we will bring with us people who have explicit expertise. We will bring with us psychiatrists and medical doctors and so on-----