Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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To go back to the idea of understanding the why, when we say we need to figure out how to restrict supply, societies have been trying to do that for a long time and it is the essence of the war on drugs, which we are trying to move away from. Obviously, within an institutional setting, I understand there is an extra layer whereby we cannot ignore contraband coming in, but if we are looking at true rehabilitation and at understanding trauma and so on, contraband coming in is probably irrelevant. If we provide the appropriate supports at a society level in every realm of people’s lives, it will be less about focusing on the supply, which has failed as a good use of resources, people's time, the State's money, legal aid and everything else. It is about how we can create a community model within a prison.

My dream is that there would be no prisons, but I will accept that there are. Even the model of addiction counsellors feels outdated to me, although I know that a review has gone out to tender recently. There should be a community development drugs workers, relapse intervention and a hive of community workers, not necessarily just addiction counsellors. If someone comes out of the treatment and rehabilitation programme, TARP, for which Mr. Treacy is responsible, relapses and is found to have a dirty urine sample or be in possession of drugs, he or she might lose some enhanced privileges. If the person is on a progression unit, for example, he or she may be moved back to the main prison, but that is not good relapse intervention. It is punishing someone for a relapse after he or she has gone through a specific programme.

If the structure in the prison was such that the person would be isolated with a view to identifying whether it was a slip or a relapse, perhaps he or she could be offered something to avoid being sent back to square one straight away. Is there any room in the prison system to integrate better community-style structures with the different types of workers who work in communities, such as family support workers and so on, in a much larger way?