Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has brought up the role of the Irish prison Service and I acknowledge its importance. In recent years, prison services have placed a much greater emphasis on support services to prevent re-offending, and offering support towards desistance of criminal activity. The Deputy is aware there is a wide range of rehabilitative programmes including education and vocational training; healthcare; psychiatric services; psychological services; counselling; welfare; and spiritual services. Access to these services remains a critical feature for offenders in addressing their offending behaviour. A greater emphasis is now being placed on pre-release planning, on putting supports in place and on making links to services in the community for offenders who leave custody. On a recent visit to a joint agency response to crime centre, J-ARC, outside Waterford city, we saw the manner in which the service is keyed in through other services in the community, for example, in the sponsoring of employment initiatives. There is no doubt, and I invite Deputy O'Callaghan to agree with me, that the best possible course of action for young offenders of a persistent nature, once they have discharged their debt to society and are released from prison, is the provision of a job. That is a key plank of Government policy.

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