Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I am concerned that the Minister is cherry picking from the report because, for example, the inspector did not state emphatically that Mountjoy should move to a new location, but left open the possibility of it being replaced on the same site.

The main recommendation of the report is that there should be an independent prison inspectorate. That is not a new recommendation, but was included in the Government's response to the committee for the prevention of tortures in 1998. Six years have now passed since the Government stated that there would be an independent prisons inspectorate. My worry is that currently the prison inspector has to report to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the publication of his or her report is at the whim of the Minister. Why is the Minister afraid to allow an independent prison inspectorate and why is he delaying the promised Bill? The Bill was promised five years ago but the current programme for this Dáil session does not specify a time frame for its introduction.

I am concerned that the Minister is cherry picking aspects of the report, some of which have been discredited. For instance, it is suggested that privatisation was a positive development in the UK. However, the report on which this assertion was based was prepared by a person who was working for a private prisons contractor.

Why has the Bill been delayed and why has an external review of the management of our prisons not been commissioned? There is a danger in proposing major changes in the prison service, as the Minister is doing, without an external review. An independent prison inspectorate must be put in place, whose report is not subject to the political vagaries of whether the Minister wishes to publish it. We also need an inspectorate that would ensure that the prison visiting committees are outside the realm of political patronage.

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