Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The confirmation Bill to confirm the resolutions passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas is a requirement of section 26 of the Prisons Act 2007. This Act provides that where the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform decides to proceed with the construction of a prison using the consent development process provided for in the 2007 Act, a resolution of both Houses of the Oireachtas approving that proposal is required. To proceed with the development, an Act of the Oireachtas confirming those resolutions is also required. This Act provides that confirmation and is the final stage in the process.

Deputies will be aware that the resolutions providing for the development of the prison were passed in the Dáil on 17 June and in the Seanad on 18 June. The resolution was debated in detail in Committee in both Houses before being passed by both Houses. These resolutions contain all the detail and were discussed in this House on 27 May and 17 June. They were also discussed in detail by the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights on 4 and 17 June.

The Bill is straightforward and contains only two sections. Section (1) confirms the dates that the resolutions were passed by the Dáil and Seanad. Section (2) provides the Short Title to the Act.

Turning to the development, the construction of this new prison is an essential development if we are to deliver real and substantive improvements in our prison system. Mountjoy Prison must be replaced. It is a Victorian prison built in 1850 for short-term convicts awaiting transportation to Tasmania. In simple terms, the accommodation is substandard; there is no in-cell sanitation. It is overcrowded and the constrained size of the site restricts the development of prisoner programmes.

A number of Deputies have drawn attention to particular problems facing the prison system. The building of a new prison development at Thornton Hall is an essential part of the solution. It will do away with slopping out in Mountjoy, substandard accommodation and overcrowding, and provide state of the art prison accommodation and facilities for education, training and rehabilitation. The design of the new prison will gain the maximum rehabilitative benefit from having a collection of small institutions but it will also maximise the operational benefits associated with having one perimeter wall and one central stores and maintenance service.

Each new prisoner will be assessed on their committal, to determine what risk they pose and what is the most appropriate regime to manage their future integration into society. The most dangerous and violent prisoners will be assigned to the high security facilities, while those who pose less risk will benefit from a lower security regime. As they progress, prisoners will move on to step down facilities in a more appropriate prison regime. The capacity of the new development will allow ringleaders and rival gang members to be easily segregated from one another. This is essential to lower the potential for inter prisoner violence.

The physical lay out of the prison also means we can provide a much safer and more secure environment than exists in Mountjoy. Because of its structure, there are difficulties in introducing mobile phone blocking in Mountjoy. Furthermore, the location of Mountjoy in the middle of an urban setting and on a crowded site makes it more difficult to stop illicit materials entering the prison.

Access to the new prison development will be through a dedicated road running from the old N2 main road. Extensive car parking and visitor facilities will be provided. A dedicated bus service will also be provided.

A range of different facilities will be provided. Separated from the male adult prison and from one another, there will be a female facility and a dual purpose block that is reserved on a contingency basis for 16 and 17 year old males. As well as a central administration centre and stores there will be work training facilities and a library, health care facilities, a gym and playing fields.

In the 1990s because of pressure of numbers, the so-called revolving door mechanism was introduced with many prisoners being given temporary release simply to make room for new committals. In 1996, 20% of the prison population were out on temporary release. I am proud to say that this and previous Governments of which I have been a member took action and today this figure is down to a more reasonable 6%. If Thornton is not built, our prison system will simply not have the capacity to deal with future needs.

The capacity of Thornton is based on projected prisoner numbers for the period up to 2015. Even though the projections envisage an increase in numbers, they predict our prison population rate per 100,000 inhabitants will reduce as our overall population increases faster than our prison population.

The development is designed for 1,400 prisoners in single cell occupancy. However, we must allow for the unforeseen and, after all, Mountjoy Prison has remained in use for more than 150 years. Therefore, the cells in the new development are designed to be large enough for double occupancy and the services are designed to cope with up to 2,200 prisoners without any major structural change. For the purpose of an environmental impact assessment it was necessary to take the most extreme scenario and, hence, the EIA cites a figure of 2,200 prisoners. However, I again emphasise that the intention for the foreseeable future is to operate the prison with no more than 1,400 prisoners.

I want to state clearly that the new development at Thornton is not intended to be a signal that prison is viewed as the only or even the most desirable sanction to be imposed in respect of criminal behaviour. It is the courts which ultimately decide on the numbers committed to prison. The Executive has no direct say in the matter and the Irish Prison Service must accept and implement the decisions of the courts. The vast majority of persons convicted of criminal offences do not receive a custodial sentence. The courts make liberal use of alternative sanctions to custody. These include fines, probation, compensation orders, supervision orders and community service orders. As a result, when one compares the prison population rate per 100,000 inhabitants, Ireland has one of the lowest rates in Europe and only half that of England and Wales. The Government's commitment to non-custodial sanctions is evidenced by a 30% increase in the size of the probation service, the establishment of the National Commission on Restorative Justice, a review of the community service scheme and the bringing forward of legislative proposals on fines.

The misleading impression is frequently given that our prisons are full of people imprisoned for non-payment of fines. It is simply not true. For example, on 23 May this year, out of over 3,500 prisoners only seven people were in prison solely for the non-payment of fines. We need to recognise that the numbers are so small they do not have any real effect on the overall prison population.

Similarly, it is simply not true to say that if we build more prison spaces, they will be automatically filled. When one examines the rate of committals to prison since the foundation of the State , one will see that there is no link between increases and decreases in committals and prison spaces. The rate of committals to prison is determined by the courts and they make their decisions without regard to prison capacity.

Specific concerns have been raised about the Dóchas Centre. It is a comparatively recent building and very well designed. Its success is proof of what the Irish Prison Service can achieve in a modern purpose built prison setting. However, we must recognise that since its opening in 1999 there has been a serious issue with overcrowding there. It has reached the stage that it is the most overcrowded prison in the State. On 1 May prisoner numbers exceeded bed capacity by 30%. That is not sustainable. It would be neither operationally nor economically effective to maintain the Dóchas Centre in Mountjoy and provide for a second women's prison at Thornton. The design of Thornton takes full advantage of all the best lessons we have learnt from the Dóchas Centre and applies them on a larger but still moderate scale. It will have single occupancy domestic style accommodation based around courtyards. It will comprise three separate sections so that women on remand will be kept separate from sentenced prisoners. I also point out that at Thornton women prisoners will be further away from male prisoners than they are at present in the Mountjoy complex and will be completely segregated from male prisoners. Women constitute a very small proportion of our total prisoner population, less than 4%, and I do not envisage any significant rise in that percentage.

The most common situation where a person may be detained for immigration reasons is the case of persons refused permission to enter the State or pending deportation. There is a strict limit on the period for which they may be detained. At present, such persons are detained in a prison, normally Cloverhill, along with other prisoners. The facilities at Thornton will be such that people detained for immigration control reasons will be accommodated completely separate from remand or sentenced prisoners in line with best international practice.

At present 16 and 17 year old male prisoners are held in St. Patrick's Institution, which is part of the Mountjoy complex. Like Mountjoy, this facility has outlived its useful life. The Government is committed to ensuring that persons under the age of 18 are not kept in the same institution as adult prisoners.

In March of this year the Government approved plans to develop facilities at Oberstown, Lusk, County Dublin to provide detention facilities for 16 and 17 year olds. If the new facilities at Oberstown are not ready in time, rather than leaving 16 and 17 year old prisoners in dilapidated and poorly serviced accommodation in St. Patrick's Institution, we will, as a contingency measure, move them temporarily to brand new purpose built accommodation at Thornton. They will be completely isolated from adult prisoners in a manner which complies with our international obligations.

As I mentioned at the outset, we are dealing with the approval of a major prison development under special procedures set out in the Prisons Act 2007. This is, in many respects, a more open, transparent and democratic procedure than the normal planning procedure for prison development. Before the 2007 Act, all prison developments were governed by Part 9 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001 under which the Minister is the deciding authority. The new procedure introduced by the 2007 Act includes the requirement for an environmental impact assessment and public consultation. The new procedure also vests final approval with the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The rapporteur received 130 submissions and his report identifies the main points raised in those submissions. All the relevant documentation has been laid before each House of the Oireachtas. Great care has been taken to ensure all the correct procedures have been followed and that due regard has been had to the environmental impact assessment and to the results of the public consultation, particularly as set out in the report of the rapporteur.

Although the prison system is an essential part of our social and rehabilitation structures, the siting of a new prison is seldom welcomed by local residents. Alterations were made, where appropriate, to address the concerns expressed by those who made submissions. After consideration and the review of expert advice, it was decided that the alterations were not material in the sense envisaged by section 24 of the Prisons Act 2007. The changes had little effect on the overall development but are of significant benefit to local residents.

The development conditions included in the resolution are partly in response to the submissions made to the rapporteur. They include prioritisation of the construction of the access road; prioritisation of the construction of those sections of the boundary wall near local residents to minimise the impact of construction work; restriction on the use of the R130; creation of a construction environmental plan for the development; use of visually treated concrete in the wall to make it less obtrusive; erection of timber fences, 3 m in height, around the car parks on the west of the site; redesign and adjustment of the car parks and a reduction in light fixtures therein; widening of planting areas; increased planting of larger and mature trees; and relocation of the wall further back by up to 10 m along portions of the exterior. These development conditions represent a balanced and considered response to the issues raised during the public consultation process and reported by the rapporteur.

The Thornton Hall development allows us to provide vastly improved facilities in small-scale institutions but with the better services and economies of scale associated with clustering those institutions on one site. The development at Thornton Hall will radically improve our prisons by doing away with prison overcrowding and substandard accommodation and significantly increasing prisoner safety. This development will make society safer.

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