Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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The Minister of State talked, in his opening statement, about additional prison numbers. There has been some criticism of the growing number of short sentences, and how these do not really impact in terms of recidivism and can cause more problems in their own right. Surely, instead of trying to drive more budget into the prisons, what we should be doing is trying to find ways of reducing sentences, reducing people going into prison and reducing the short sentences, which are particularly problematic. How much is being spent on other options there?

Second, there are issues in relation to prisoners not being able to get access to educational opportunities in prison because prison officers are not available to bring them to and from these educational opportunities. Is the budget that the Government is putting into this Supplementary Estimate sufficient to enable all prisoners to engage in educational opportunities? Surely, if there are challenges with getting prisoners out of their cells, we should be copying other countries, which provide in-cell technology so prisoners who are in their cells can access educational opportunities that way. It is a very standard thing in many other countries.

In terms of prison staff, does the budget cover addiction counsellors? I have raised with the Minister issues in relation to the dwindling numbers of addiction counsellors within prison services. Given the criminogenic influence of addiction, surely one of the most rehabilitative and preventative things we can do is to provide addiction treatment.

Finally, for my own clarity, does this budget cover probation officers? We have a dwindling number of probation officers. Probation officer numbers are either falling or static, at a time when our population and prison population are growing. The caseload ratio of probation officers is much bigger, and it is causing problems in terms of their ability to engage with prisoners and their ability to do that preventative and pre-release work, all of which is about reducing recidivism. When we add that back to the first point where I started with the short sentences, we are then looking at a situation where prison is not the rehabilitative thing that we want it to be. It is not reducing recidivism; it is simply becoming criminogenic in its own right. Can we address the issue of short sentences? Are we providing budget for alternatives to prison? Can we find other ways to support educational opportunities, are we funding addiction counsellors and what are we doing about probation officers in these Estimates?