Tony Kett (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to the House. Like my colleague, Senator Jim Walsh, I assure the Minister that I support his proposals in this legislation. Senator Walsh did not mention that we can hold him responsible in many ways for what happened last night because his substitute during that debate was Senator Cox.

I welcome the practical Bill that is before the House. As Senator Cummins said, there are three main planks to the legislation. The Minister has chosen to contract out the prison escort service. I applaud the position taken by the Minister on that issue throughout the discussions with the prison officers. He tackled the immoral and unsustainable system that meant that a small number of prison officers could accrue overtime earnings which were greater than their gross pay. I agree that contracting out the escort service to reduce overtime payments is the best way forward. I am sure it will lead to severe cost reductions, thereby benefitting taxpayers. I agree with the Minister's decision to allow for the possible sale of the Mountjoy Prison complex, as provided for in this Bill. The introduction of video conferencing is another laudable and desirable development that will save the taxpayer considerable amounts of money. It is right that it will entitle prisoners to participate in an orderly way in a decent and humane situation, to develop their potential while they are in prison and to prepare to return to society.

Mountjoy Prison is located in a part of Dublin that I represented for 17 years on Dublin City Council. My former colleague in this house, Deputy Costello, who also represents that part of Dublin, is an ardent supporter and defender of prisoners' rights. When I listened to the Dáil debate on this issue, I was slightly confused to hear Deputy Costello trying to lambaste the Minister. Nobody succeeds in lambasting Deputy McDowell. I found it hard to reconcile Deputy Costello's comments on the possible sale of Mountjoy Prison with his reputation. He spoke about possible archaeological finds as a means of preventing the sale of the prison. I found it odd that the Deputy, who has defended prisoners over the years, was trying to block the Minister's attempts to develop state-of-the-art facilities for prisoners in Thornton Hall. That is the way I looked at it, in any event, and that is the way it came across. Nobody can make a legitimate case against the Minister's proposal to sell Mountjoy Prison, which is an outdated Victorian complex, as the Minister and Senator Jim Walsh have said. The ability of the prison to serve the purpose for which it is used has passed. It is overcrowded and in poor condition. It is badly equipped to deal with the problems which need to be addressed in the prisons system. Anyone who has visited Mountjoy Prison recently will agree that it is depressing and inhumane. I am sure people will argue that the Minister is throwing good money after bad because some necessary improvements have been made to it.

The people of this country, which has a young population, have much more money in their pockets than ever before. They encounter many opportunities to end up on the wrong side of the law. The Government is dealing with the problems in the justice system by putting more gardaí on the streets and by offering those who end up on the wrong side of the law the humanity of serving their time in decent surroundings. Mountjoy Prison has been criticised by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and by the Inspector of Prisons and Places of Detention. People are slopping out in Mountjoy Prison, just as people in ordinary houses had to do at the start of the 20th century.

Anyone who visits Mountjoy Prison is aware that drugs are freely available there. There are many ways and means of getting drugs into the complex. Prisoners can use their mobile telephones to arrange for drugs to be thrown over the wall of the prison, which is set right against the street. People do not have to use cars or buses to get to the prison, as they will have to do, more or less, when the prisoners move to their new surroundings, so they can walk to the prison to supply drugs to prisoners. The people of the area around Mountjoy Prison have grown up and lived with the prison without having too many problems with it. The worst thing to happen in the locality was probably the shooting of a prisoner earlier this year.

A young man was released from prison and shot half an hour later in broad daylight in front of shopkeepers and members of the public going about their business.

However, by and large, for a complex set in a built-up area in the heart of the city, there were few problems. This should be some comfort to the residents of the Thornton Hall area because few people live close to the site. Its sale will bring about a regeneration of the area which I represented and of which I am very fond. I hope that when the planners develop and regenerate that area, they allow for the building of fewer of the skyscrapers that have begun to appear throughout the city. I am sure Senator Brady, who also represents the area, will be shoulder to shoulder with me in ensuring this does not happen.

The Mountjoy Prison complex is incapable of serving as a centre of rehabilitation — it probably never was. Prisoners should no longer have to put up with the conditions there. No more money should be spent on it because that would be financial suicide and the Minister could rightly be held up to ridicule if he did so. The idea of moving the prison makes good sense.

I understand the concerns of local residents at Thornton Hall. Members have experienced similar local objections in inner cities in regard to the opening of drugs rehabilitation centres by the health boards. We have all attended public meetings at which residents threw their hands in the air and cried wolf. However, they eventually settled down despite the centres being located closer to their homes than the Thornton site will be to residents there. Local residents came around and in the end became quite friendly with some of the individuals being rehabilitated.

Video conferencing is a terrific idea, so much so that on reading the explanatory information on it, I wondered why it had taken so long to happen. If video conferencing works to an optimum level, it will almost render the first element of the Bill unnecessary, which would be wonderful. I realise it will not be possible to video conference on all occasions and that it will be necessary to take some people to court. However, it will remove the security element, the financial element and other elements that remain a cause of concern.

This is a fine, practical Bill and I look forward to its implementation.