Ms Caron McCaffrey:

Absolutely. The Senator's vision of a multiplicity of services straddling both the prison and community is where we would like to get to. Currently, we have 19 Merchants Quay addiction counsellors, which is clearly insufficient for the needs of the people we have, but that through-care aspect is not there. If someone is engaging with Merchants Quay in prison, it does not follow that he or she will go on to receive the same treatment or programme in the community. We are reviewing our Merchants Quay contract and engaging with the organisation on a service level agreement, SLA. We are also reviewing TARP, our detoxification programme in Mountjoy, to see how it can much more expansive it can become.

Nevertheless, I need to reinforce the point about contraband within prisons. It is not just about a person taking a drug; it is the behaviours that it fuels. If there are drugs within a prison setting, the value will be far in excess of the street value. The user may then become in debt to somebody and be put under pressure to engage in other behaviours in the prison to repay that debt, or the family on the outside may come under pressure to repay it. Drugs do not have an impact just on somebody being able to continue their addiction. They drive so many security-related offences. We have a lot of people in prison on protection and the majority of them seek protection when they come in, which means they cannot engage with all the services that are available to them, because they have a drug debt. The person who is owed may also be in the prison or may have people aligned to him or her in the prison. Drugs within our prisons drive so many issues, difficulties and discord. It is not just about somebody having access to a substance that can allow them to continue their addiction.

We are on a learning journey, and we are certainly changing our mindset in regard to the recovery model approach. We know that the peer-led approach works and we have pioneered some exciting peer-led programmes within the Prison Service. A lot of people with a lived experience who are currently in custody have dealt with their addiction and can provide that service on the landing when people need it, and we can create those recovery communities within our custodial settings, which would look very different from how we work at the moment. It is in its infancy.