Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate there was a pre-prepared statement for the Minister of State to read and I appreciate him being here. I am doing this with the benefit of Dáil privilege because the shutters come down, whether at meetings of the Committee of Public Accounts or the justice committee, in the media or in written and oral parliamentary questions. Everybody knows what is going on but nobody wants to know. I want the Government to publish the Gilheaney report. Because of the mismanagement of this illegal surveillance that went on under the Government's watch, the State is liable to cases being taken by many prison staff who were illegally surveiled, prisoners, solicitors and so on, which could financially expose the State to an awful lot of money. The Government must get on and publish the report. Beyond that, I call specifically on the Minister of State to get the Minister to acknowledge my call and to give a response. We need to establish an independent inspectorate of the Prison Service, at arm's length from the service, with GSOC-style statutory powers. The Inspector of Prisons does not have the power to insist on documentation, for example, as was the case for the report she recently carried out, whereas a GSOC-style entity would.

Staff of the Prison Service are terrified. Of the 20 to 30 I have met, some have made protected disclosures but most have not. Why? Because there is no confidentiality with protected disclosures. It goes around that X made a protected disclosure, X is labelled a rat, is intimidated and ostracised, and the system goes on. We want an independent inspectorate with GSOC-style statutory powers and appropriate resources to give hard-working prison staff the confidence that they can go to a body that is above reproach. They do not have that now because the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 in that sense does not function within the Prison Service.

Second, under the Commission of Investigations Act 2004, I call on the Government immediately to commence an investigation into corruption in our Prison Service among the chosen few - I am at pains to point out the vast majority of staff are very hard-working and want to get on with their lives and do the best they can - on issues to do with misappropriation of State funds, examples of which I have given, sexual harassment, intimidation, career blocking and illegal surveillance. Simply, nothing less will do. We owe it to the Prison Service and and to hard-working prison staff. We faced some of our demons in this country in the past in terms of clerical abuse. We have cleaned up politics a little bit with the Standards in Public Office Commission and we have made a start with An Garda Síochána. It is time that we rooted out the small number who are nurturing a corrupt culture within the Prison Service.

See this speech in context