Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The effect of the second part of the amendment providing for the suspension of a prisoner custody officer pending a decision on a complaint concerning his or her conduct could result in the encouragement of vexatious complaints from prisoners in order to have prisoner custody officers removed from duty. I am satisfied section 7(9), which provides for referral of complaints to the Minister, is adequate to deal with the points raised by Deputy O'Keeffe. A direction in regard to suspension could only be made having regard to the gravity of the offence and the credibility of the complaint. The amendment is not necessary and it is unwise to make legislative provision of the nature sought for the reasons I have outlined.

Amendment No. 3 was put to the Minister on Committee Stage and, having some sympathy with the points raised, he agreed to consider the matter further. The amendment proposes to insert additional text at the end of section 8(2) making it clear that a prisoner custody officer may not conduct an intimate body search of a prisoner. As the Minister previously stated, routine and random searches of prisoners are conducted on a daily basis, including of those going to, and returning, from court, for security and safety reasons and, in particular, to ensure contraband is kept out of the prison environment. These searches are essential in reducing the incidence of drugs in prisons.

However, I assure Deputies that intimate searches — in this regard I refer to internal searches — cannot be conducted. A prohibition of such searches is contained in the draft prison rules. Rule 6 sets down provisions relating to searching a prisoner and specifically prohibits in paragraph 9 invasive searching of the orifices of a prisoner's body. A number of the other provisions are also made in this rule concerning the conduct of searches, such as the number of prison officers present at a search and the requirement that searches are carried out by officers of the same gender as the prisoner.

As has been stated in regard to previous amendments, a prisoner custody officer will be required to comply with these rules as provided for in section 8(7). In these circumstances, the provisions I have cited are sufficient to meet the concerns of Deputies. Again, the Minister is not in favour of distinguishing between the obligations on prisoner custody officers and those on prison officers. It is appropriate that both prison officers and prisoner custody officers with responsibility for prisoners should abide by the same code and obligations and duties set down in the prison rules.

For similar reasons, I will not accept amendment No. 4, tabled by Deputy Ó Snodaigh. The prison rules will apply to the prisoner custody officers in the same way as they apply to prison officers, including the obligations in respect of the dignity and human rights of prisoners which would encompass an obligation to ensure the health and safety of a prisoner. It is also worth mentioning that section 8(6)(c) requires a prisoner custody officer, when escorting a prisoner from court to a prison, to give to the governor of the prison to which the prisoner is being transferred any information relating to the prisoner's health of which the officer is aware.

Amendment No. 5, tabled by Deputy Ó Snodaigh, appears to address a concern raised by the Deputy on Committee Stage that a situation may arise in which an officer might come across information which might be useful to prevent the commission of a crime and that the officer may require the approval of the Minister to pass this information on to the Garda. In these circumstances, I am not prepared to accept this amendment. Section 9(1)(a) provides that a prisoner custody officer can disclose information relating to a prisoner where authorised by the Minister to do so. The subsection could allow for the inclusion of a revision in the contract of employment of a prisoner custody officer of the necessary authorisation to disclose information to the Garda where it would be considered useful in preventing the commission of an offence. I am disinclined to introduce exceptions to the prohibition on the disclosure of information by prisoner custody officers, as to so do may increase the risk of an inappropriate disclosure. It may also be the case that such an exception to the prohibition rule as proposed in the amendment could be open to widely different interpretations as to the situations where disclosure should take place and to whom.

Amendment No. 6 tabled by Deputy O'Keeffe concerns the non-disclosure of information relating to prisoners and details of information the Minister may not make public in respect of a prisoner, unless it concerns a matter of national importance. The proposed amendment aims to restrict what the Minister can say in public about an individual prisoner's case. The amendment is unnecessary and could result in the Minister being unable to answer parliamentary questions on prisoner cases.

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