Ms Saoirse Brady:

On overcrowding, Deputy Stanton referred to people being sentenced and going to prison. The most recent annual report we have from Irish Prison Service is from 2020. This showed that 74% of committals were for sentences of 12 months or less. That particularly impacts people going in for very short sentences. We know of people who are sentenced for maybe a matter of weeks or months but because of the pressures on the system at the moment they are in there for five days. What use is that to anybody? It does not actually deter people in the future. We need to look at alternatives to custody and really invest in those. We have made a pre-budget submission. We have called for more investment in the Probation Service, in restorative justice in particular and in mental health and addiction services within prison settings. We must reduce the number of people in prisons, which is Government policy. The Review of Policy Options for Prison and Penal Reform 2022-2024 refers to reducing the number of people going in on short sentences of 12 months or less. We need to implement that and we need to take it seriously because the prison system cannot cope with the number of people that are in it. We do not need more prison spaces; we need to reduce the number of people going there in the first place.