Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming into the House to listen to what I have to say. We have all found the past 15 months to be difficult. Those who could not get out and about and older people confined to their homes found it particularly so. We have to try to imagine what it is like to be locked up in prison during that period. Every small freedom left to inmates in prison had to be curtailed. During that period, there were virtually no prison visits, and what visits that did take place within the short windows when they were allowed were very constrained in time and numbers.

I commend the Prison Service, prison staff and prisoners on the huge co-operation in ensuring there was a minimal amount of Covid in our prison system. That was a huge achievement which came at huge personal cost, particularly to prisoners, in terms of the limited opportunities they have in prison. Video visits were good, but we have all found that the Zoom meeting is no substitute for in-person meetings. We need to take a humane view of where we are now.

Belatedly, vaccines are being rolled out across the board in prisons. The process in this regard needs to be completed expeditiously. We need to look at the issue of families visits. We need to be generous in what we do and to balance the psychological rights and the general well-being of people with the other risk factors we know are there. Of course, the large number of parents of prisoners who have been vaccinated is a big help on this road. We need as expeditious a reopening of prison visits as possible. We need immediately to hear firm dates for when this is going to happen and to be generous in regard to the modalities, that is, the length of visits, the number of people who can visit and so on. I point out how successfully we reopened nursing homes to visitors a considerable time ago. The people in the nursing home cohort are generally much more vulnerable than members of the prison population.

I was disappointed to hear last week that religious services have not recommenced in prisons in the same way that they have in the outside world. I cannot understand this because religious services are important to those who wish to attend them. Obviously, because it is a prison environment, religious services must take place in a very controlled atmosphere. It is absolutely necessary that an announcement be made today that religious services will be made available once again, irrespective of faith, as they were pre Covid.

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