Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We should accept that prisons do not work and we should look at the alternatives. I will not go through the statistics but we are well aware our prisons are full of poor people who were disadvantaged in the early stages of their lives. Keeping someone in prison costs a fortune and is a serious waste of money. The money could be used in a more positive way. If it costs €65,000 to keep one person in prison, can we imagine what we could do with that at the early stage of kids' lives? From the point of view of the State, we have the most disappointing child care facilities in Europe. This is very important and we should address it. Everyone is familiar with the idea that every euro we spend on a child under three years of age saves the State €8 before the child is 20 years of age. We are all in favour of clever investment so it is hard to credit that we are still struggling to have a proper free child care system at State level. People are struggling to make ends meet because it is so expensive. My son has a child and it costs €750 a month to have the child minded three days a week. That is crazy and makes life difficult. That child care does not exist in the proper sense is having a social impact and is having an impact on the economy. I have visited a number of prisons. The Minister touched on the fact that slopping out has almost been done away with. It is still in place in Portlaoise prison, which is disappointing.

The opening speaker referred to Cork Prison and how horrendous it is. Although I have not been in it, I believe him. It is disappointing that we are not looking at single cell occupancy in Cork Prison. We argued this point with the Minister at the time. I had a number of battles with Deputy Alan Shatter when he was Minister but he was very good on prison issues. I was disappointed that he did not go for single occupancy in Cork Prison. He more or less said that if we went for single occupancy, we would have half the prison space. Well, that is good because we should have only half of the space. We need to reduce the prison population. In fairness to Deputy Alan Shatter, to his credit it has reduced in the past number of years. It must come down further because sending someone to prison for not paying a television licence fee is irrational. It does not make sense and it costs the State a ridiculous amount of money. Zero people benefit from sending people to prisons for not paying a television licence.

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