Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I wish the Minister well in his position as Tánaiste. He has been Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform for four years and four months but we have yet to see legislation to put the office of prison inspector on a statutory basis. All I have seen is media speculation. If the will was there, the Minister could have moved more quickly on this. Is he giving a commitment that an independent inspectorate will be put in place before Christmas? Will he make the same mistake that he made with the Garda Ombudsman Commission, whereby the staff will not be independent but will be seconded from the Garda Síochána? Does the Minister not agree it is crucial that the prison inspectorate is completely independent of the Department and the Prison Service?

The Minister appears to be more interested in Ceaucescu-like projects for super prisons in north Dublin than in systematic reform of the prison system and how it works. The test of any society is not how it treats the most well-off but how it treats its most wretched citizens. In three reports the Committee for the Prevention of Torture has urged the Minister to provide an independent inspectorate. We had an independent prison inspectorate 180 years ago in the 1820s. When will the Minister move on this? Will the proposed inspectorate be truly independent so it can give testimony to actual conditions in the prisons without fear or favour?

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