Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Bill. We need to examine the overcrowding in our prisons. Figures from yesterday indicate that five of our 12 prisons are over capacity. Currently, all Irish prisons hold close to 4,000 prisoners and our main remand prison in Cloverhill is now at 97% capacity. This is an urgent matter. We have a growing population and yet our prisons are nearly at full capacity. We need to look at solutions to the problem as burying our heads in the sand is not good enough. We must re-examine the sending of women to prison for small-time crime. This is done in the UK. When women committed petty crimes in that country in the past, they were being sentenced to prison but now there are alternatives, including training, before getting the women into the world again. These people will have learned the error of their ways after small crimes.

We must consider how to protect people in rural Ireland, especially those living in isolated areas. I come from a rural area in west Cork and I know only too well the fear about crime in our communities, particularly among isolated people who live alone. They may be elderly and vulnerable. Where bail has been granted, electronic monitoring should be a mandatory condition. I understand electronic monitoring cannot, in itself, prevent a person from committing a crime, it is certainly a deterrent. We must do everything we can to make the people living in rural Ireland feel safe again.

I have stood here many times in this House highlighting the Government's failure to rural-proof its actions. There have been prolonged closures of rural Garda stations around the country, which is without doubt the biggest contributing factor to rural crime. There are three coastal Garda stations in my constituency, among many others, that have faced closure. These are Goleen, Adrigole and Ballinspittle. The people of Ballinspittle are working very hard as a community to get their Garda station reopened. The Minister for Justice and Equality was here earlier and I hope he will be back in a moment to clarify the position in this regard. I see from media reports that he visited the Stepaside Garda station. It is one of six Garda stations that are to reopen. If he visited the Stepaside Garda station on Monday, surely he will visit Ballinspittle and the other four that remain closed? They are very important to their communities. If these stations are reopened, it might at least help to discourage those who are committing crimes and allay people's fears.

See this speech in context