Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I disagree with the Minister of State's take on the issue. Penal policy is resulting in more places being devised in prisons at an enormous cost to the State. Apart from the moral issues, it is not even a good value for money exercise and it does not address the issues of sentencing policy, drugs in prison and so on. At the end of the last year, 60% of prisoners shared cells, many of which were designed to house a single person. The Minister published the strategic plan on the Prison Service, which was welcome, but the lack of a commitment to a single cell policy is a serious omission. Ireland signed up to this through the European prison rules drawn up by the Council of Europe, yet the Government is embarking on prison building projects in Cork and Limerick, which will provide for shared cells. There are many educational and other reasons not to do this. However, the Minister of State seems to be saying it is now a conscious policy not to have a single cell policy and she is almost putting that forward as a virtue, with which most of those in the service would disagree. Will she clarify her position?

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