Dáil debates

Wednesday, 2 May 2012

 

Prisoner Releases

3:00 pm

Photo of Dara CallearyDara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. I welcome the publication of the strategic plan from the Irish Prison Service last Monday and congratulate the Director General of the Irish Prison Service, Michael Donnellan, and his team for putting it together in such a short period of time since his appointment. His appointment as director is significant. He comes with a progressive background from the Probation Service and the experience of his work there will fit into the job in the Prison Service. The provision of in-cell sanitation in every cell within three and a half years is to be welcomed. Anyone who has seen the reality of a prison cell has a different understanding of this issue.

I strongly welcome the drug-free units and it would be remiss not to draw attention to the work in Mountjoy Prison, where great progress was made in recent years for relatively low capital investments by using people's ideas and making it virtually impossible to transport drugs into Mountjoy. I particularly welcome the moving of 16 and 17 year olds out of St. Patrick's Institution. The Minister and the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and all involved in that decision, if they do nothing else for the rest of their term, should be rightly proud if they achieve that by the end of their term in office. In terms of using prison as a place for rehabilitation and learning, the policy of having 16 and 17 year olds in St. Patrick's Institution cannot work. The Minister enjoys the full support of this side of the House in pursuing that policy as soon as possible.

I am concerned, however, given resource constraints at the moment, about the plan for temporary release of prisoners into community service and projects which, unlike some of the reports in the media, is not a huge leap from what is happening at present. The formalisation of the scheme, however, will require resources for the Probation Service in particular and the Irish Prison Service.

Those who are going to be released will be deemed not to be a safety risk. I am happy to accept that language but the Minister has commissioned a report on the manner in which the prisoner was transferred to Loughan House. Balls get dropped. I know there is a new report but what procedures exist to deem what is a safety risk? The Minister said non-violent prisoners will be released. Are we talking about prisoners who are non-violent while serving their sentences or a person who has committed a non-violent offence? Will a prisoner who committed a violent offence be released?

A pilot programme involving 85 prisoners is in place. Could the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality get a presentation in private session on the report on that programme to see how it is working?

My final point relates to the role of victims in this process. Every crime, regardless of its scale, has a victim. Will victims' families be involved in the consultation process relating to the pre-release programme? The last thing we need is for the victim of a crime to come across the individual who perpetrated it while he or she is involved in some element of a community service programme, perhaps working in the victim's neighbourhood or outside his or her home. Would it be possible to formalise the role of victims in the pre-release process in order that they might be fully involved? One of the major shocks for me in respect of Loughan House was that once the prisoner had been jailed, the victim's family was completely out of the equation. I know there is much better awareness of the needs of victims' families in the aftermath of that incident. Perhaps that awareness needs to permeate the entire system, particularly as we move towards the formalisation of the pre-release process.

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