Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

That is an incredible job of answering a question I did not ask. No part of my question, either in written form or in my contribution, referred to the release of people in prison for serious offences. I discount even the notion of that. However, while we are talking about increased populations, why do we not conduct an audit of who exactly is in our prisons? In the majority of cases, they are there because of addiction and for all sorts of issues for which prison is not the most useful means of rehabilitation. We are all looking for the same outcome, namely, places where people who engage in crime can have consequences that suit both their crimes and the communities impacted by their crimes. What we have is a conveyor belt of people who for various reasons - usually addiction - go into our prisons, sleep on floors and continue that addiction. They then come out of prison and reoffend because prison is traumatic. We are all asking whether that is the best approach. It clearly is not working.

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