Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The issue raised by Senator Wilson is extremely important and I am grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to address this House on it.

One way or another, Loughan House will continue to provide facilities equivalent to those provided for prisoners today. Whereas Senator Wilson has quite properly said that nobody will lose their job, he is worried about the implications of transferring some prison officers to other institutions. If this comes to pass, other people in the locality will be employed to keep Loughan House going. It will continue to be an institution providing equivalent facilities to those provided at the moment while it is part of the Irish Prison Service.

I have no desire to take the running of Loughan House or Shelton Abbey out of the control of the Irish Prison Service or to close or mothball any prison. I am very well aware of the good work being done at Loughan House and the other three institutions mentioned in the Government decision of 11 November. I want that good work to go on and to be enhanced in the coming years by making available funds for education, vocational training and offending behaviour programmes which is currently going to feed prison overtime payments.