Dáil debates

Thursday, 1 December 2016

Prisons (Solitary Confinement) (Amendment) Bill 2016: Second Stage [Private Members]

 

6:45 pm

Photo of Jim O'CallaghanJim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will start by thanking Deputies Wallace and Paul Murphy for permitting me to speak ahead of them. I also want to welcome this Bill and the opportunity to speak on the Irish Prison Service, on prison officers and the prisoners who are held within our prisons. It is instructive to note that since I became justice spokesperson for Fianna Fáil, on many occasions in this House I have debated issues concerning An Garda Síochána, judges, the Criminal Assets Bureau, CAB, changes to our criminal law, the courts and, indeed, family law. However, this is only the second occasion on which I have been asked to debate or discuss in this Chamber issues concerning our prisons.

The first occasion was when I introduced under Private Members' business a Parole Bill, which passed Second Stage. The second occasion is the publication by Deputy Daly of her Bill on seeking to restrain solitary confinement.

As representatives of the people and individuals who are responsible for speaking on justice issues, we are doing a disservice not only to prisoners, but to our prison officers and the Irish Prison Service, if we do not discuss in this Chamber issues concerning Irish prisons. It is not as though we can present Irish prisons as being some separate lost world that occurs behind walls about which we do not have any ongoing serious debate. Prisons play a vital role in our criminal justice system and it is extremely important that we, as legislators, continue to debate how best they can be reformed and improved not simply for the prisoners within the Irish Prison Service, but also for the prison officers and the other members of staff who work in them.

It is important to note that the area that must be reformed in our criminal justice system is the question of punishment. In many respects, the question of punishment has not changed significantly since Victorian times. We still have an over-dependence upon punishment, which is seen in terms of custodial sentences. I know, as I am sure does every other Member in this House, that there are certain individuals who because of their violence and the threat they pose to society must be subjected to a custodial sentence. However, there are others where it is too much of an easy option for us to go down the route of putting them in jail. We must constantly review and appraise our penal system to see whether we can come up with different, more creative and more effective forms of punishment than simply locking people up.

It is also important, given an opportunity like this, that we consider the statistics in respect of Irish prisons. Approximately 3,700 persons are kept as prisoners in Irish prisons. That is a weight of approximately 80 per 100,000. That is not at the high end of the international system when we compare it to the United States of America, which has 716 persons per 100,000 in prison or Cuba, which, perhaps surprisingly to some, has 510 people per 100,000 in prison. The Irish figures are not that high. However, the average cost of a prisoner in our prison system is approximately €68,000 per annum in terms of the cost of a prison space.

The vast majority of prisoners in Ireland have a very poor education. There is a huge correlation between imprisonment and leaving school before the age of 15 without having completed, let alone passed, a State examination. The more we improve the education system in deprived areas of our country, the more we will continue to reduce the prison numbers in our prisons. In 2008, of the 520 prisoners who were enrolled in the school at Mountjoy, 20% of them could not read or write. We need to ensure that we improve the education system in deprived areas of this country as that will have a direct impact on the prison population.

We also need to recognise that prisons give the State an enormous amount of power. When the State puts people into prison, it has virtually complete control over them. We need to use that control as best we can for the purpose of seeking to rehabilitate people. I recognise, and I am sure everyone else recognise it also, that there are certain prisoners who may not be capable of rehabilitation, although no soul should ever be lost to the attempt to rehabilitate them. However, there are many who can be rehabilitated and we need to concentrate on inculcating in such individuals the benefits of education and the opportunities that should lie ahead for them when they leave prison. We should try to use the prison system as a means to train persons who are within the prison system.

On the specific issue of solitary confinement, we know that solitary confinement has been a part of the prison system for as long as the prison system has been in operation. It dates back to classical times. There have been numerous references in literature to people who were confined. Charles Dickens wrote about solitary confinement and the impact it had on individuals. We know that solitary confinement has a serious impact on the mental health of prisoners. We also know that it is used on occasion for the purpose of punishing and restraining prisoners. However, if it was suggested that prisoners who are ill disciplined, who cannot be restrained or who need to be punished were to have their limbs broken, we would completely reject that as barbaric. Similarly, when it is suggested that we should put prisoners into solitary confinement in the knowledge that it will have an impact on their mental health, we should also view that in similar terms.

I know the Irish Prison Service has difficulties in the prison system in terms of dealing with certain prisoners, and the figures reveal those difficulties. The figures for the Republic show that on 1 January last, 51 inmates in Irish Prison Service jails were being held in their cells for at least 22 hours a day, with half of them held for more than 100 days and at least nine prisoners spending more than a year in such a conditions. Half of those are held in Mountjoy Prison, in north Dublin. The majority of prisoners held in solitary confinement on 1 January last were sent there under prison rule 63. That rule was designed to protect vulnerable prisoners and can be used at a prisoner's own request where the prisoner feels he may be under threat. We need to see whether we can come up with a more effective method of protecting prisoners in jail who are exposed to threats from other prisoners. It should not be beyond the realm of our ingenuity, whether by allocating separate prisons for that, to see whether we can deal with it. In all, 36 of the 51 inmates who were on 22 hour or 23 hour lock-up on 1 January were there under rule 63, and only one of those was their at the governor's direction. Rule 62 is used when the prison governor decides a prisoner is having a negative effect on the general population. A total of 11 prisoners were on 22 hour or 23 hour lock-up under this rule on 1 January.

We need to move away from the current position where solitary confinement is seen as being too readily available. I welcome Deputy Daly's Bill and I believe it will benefit when it comes before the Oireachtas committee. As a committee, we need to hear from individuals concerned with Irish prisons, including prison officers and representative of the Irish Prison Service, but I welcome the fact that Deputy Daly has put the issue of solitary confinement in Irish prisons on the agenda of this Chamber. Had she not done so, I do not believe anyone else would have done it in the immediate future. For that reason, Fianna Fáil will be supporting this legislation to get it beyond Second Stage and into committee. We know, as the Minister of State pointed out, that there may be failings in the legislation. That is something that can be teased out. We need to examine the legislation with an enabling eye rather than a permanently critical eye. We need to recognise that this is an issue that requires reform, and we will work constructively in committee for the purpose of trying to tease out the legislation to see how it can be informed. I am sure Deputy Daly will agree that it will be an opportune time to hear from those directly involved in the prison system, namely, prison officers, prison governors and prisoners themselves.

We also need to recognise that the United Nations is issuing guidelines in respect of solitary confinement. In 2011, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan Méndez, called on all countries to ban the solitary confinement of prisoners except in very exceptional circumstances and for as short a time as possible. We also need to ensure it is something that is expressly excluded for children and people with mental disabilities. For those reasons, and recognising that this is legislation that can be improved, and I am sure it contains some failings, we will be supporting it on Second Stage and hope to be able to work with Deputy Daly, the Government and the other representatives of the Irish Prison Service on Committee Stage.

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