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

I would like to make a couple of brief points. It is appropriate to step back and look at where prison policy is going, not just in the context of human rights issues and how one judges a civilised society but also against the backdrop of austerity, the minute analysis of where taxpayer's money is spent and the question of whether we get value for that money.

Are prisons operating to make society a safer place? Do they act as a deterrent for people going into crime? Are they value for money? Is there a better way in which we could organise things? These are valid questions to be asked and I do not think we ask them enough.

The reality is that the majority of people in our prisons are there due to socioeconomic factors. They are the victims of poverty, of abuse and, in many instances, of the cycle of drugs and drug abuse in particular. We need to address those root causes. To invest resources in those areas would make society a far safer place and would offer greater value for money, to my mind, than spending an enormous amount of money on prisons per se. My belief is that prisons serve very little purpose whatsoever. I believe they are institutions for the people outside rather than for the people within, and they do not make things any better. In many ways, we have seen enough analysis to know they are a sort of holding operation, a temporary reprieve for many of the people who spend some time in prison before going back out for a brief spell, only to come back in again without any rehabilitation or without any repayment of their debt to society. In fact, their crime results in society paying a huge cost to keep them in prison yet they are back in again a couple of months later.

We need to take a step back and look at where we are going in this regard. I previously spent a month in Mountjoy Women's Prison, a prison which we laud as being more enlightened for its thinking and having had a more rehabilitative impact, initially at least. We would have to say it has rolled back considerably from its early years. In my experience of being in there, most of the women were victims of poverty, drug abuse or sexual abuse in their youth and they needed assistance and intervention. While the cost has come down a bit, at that stage it was costing approximately €80,000 per head to keep people there, whereas if they had received an intervention early on in life, it would have been far cheaper for everybody - the women themselves and those upon whom they committed the offences that led them there in the first place. We need to see the discussion in that context.

Cork Prison was infamous for its appalling standards and for some of the conduct that went on there in terms of the treatment of people, which certainly did not lead to people coming out better citizens - if anything, I imagine it made them even worse, more tormented individuals. There was solitary confinement, stories about people being stripped to their boxer shorts and left in rooms for days on end and so on. It was a very reprehensible type of culture that no civilised person could stand over.

When we are looking to improve Cork Prison, which is a good thing in some ways, we have to look at it with a critical eye. It is not good enough that the Bill is being rushed through or that it is being guillotined on a Thursday evening. It is not good enough that the notice for motions was very limited and that the one motion which was put down as an amendment was struck out of order. It is not good enough to rush these things through. We are potentially talking about 310 people being incarcerated in this new prison. If we are putting in taxpayers' money, we should at least know that what we are doing is being done properly and that we are starting out on a proper footing. In that context, it is a missed opportunity.

It is also a missed opportunity not to include the amendment Deputy Mick Wallace put forward with regard to single cell occupancy. Double occupancy is against all best practice and goes against the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch's previous statements that single occupancy was the way forward and should be the only way in which to deal with people. I am not sure why this is being rushed through in such a short space of time. Organisations for which I know the Minister of State would have respect, such as the Jesuits and others, have been in contact with our office and they are very concerned at the speed of this and concerned that their points have not been taken on board. I was going to give the Minister of State the benefit of the doubt and suggest the rush is on to clear a bit of space for a few of the Anglo criminals but, sadly, I do not think that will be the case and our prisons will continue to hold those from a lower socioeconomic background. However, we are not doing them or the taxpayer any favours by putting in inadequate systems from the beginning.

There is a serious problem about planning double cell occupancy from the very beginning. It is against all best practice and goes against the process that is under way in trying to improve the situation in Mountjoy Prison. Why would the Government do this in Mountjoy Prison, on the one hand, and then take a retrograde step in Cork? There is a clear contradiction. It is a clear breach of international best practice given the Minister said last week the prison would provide what he called "adequate" and "suitable" accommodation for all prisoners. Is that really true? Article 18.5 of the European prison rules states: "Prisoners shall normally be accommodated during the night in individual cells except where it is preferable for them to share sleeping accommodation." Fr. Peter McVerry, the expert on this area, said:

Cell sharing should not be the norm... In many cases, it results in increased intimidation and violence, and leads to non-drug users being introduced to drug use. ... [E]nforced sharing can represent a very cramped and oppressive living environment [given] that in Ireland out-of-cell time is, at best, only six or seven hours a day.

It is not just about people doubling up. It is about forcing people into a very small space to endure the company of somebody else for the overwhelming part of their day. This is a serious issue which must be addressed. We have obligations under the Council of Europe to ensure that prison conditions do not infringe on human dignity and provide proper occupational facilities. In that sense, the decision should be debated more and not rushed through in this way.

The very fact we are building a bigger prison is a problem for me. Again, best international practice shows we should be moving away from bigger prisons whereas the plan for this one is a population greater than what was there before, including planned doubling up from the beginning, which is not on. Other Deputies have referred to points-----

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