Labhrás Ó Murchú (Fianna Fail)

I commend the Minister for the tenacity of his efforts to reform and modernise the prison system. Although he may not refer to it, I can imagine the vested interests he has to tackle, in the same way as those who are trying to reform the health system. The prison regime is an exceptional problem but he has researched it well and has a vision for it.

One is caught between a rock and a hard place in this debate. One cannot expect victims and their families to feel sympathy for what happens when a prisoner is sent to jail. This is particularly true in the context of the brutal nature of crime today. In our wildest nightmares we could not have envisaged some of the crime being committed on the streets. Victims and their families may feel criminals should be locked up and forgotten. We have seen this thinking in the prison regimes of other countries. The film "Midnight Express" depicted the prison regime in Turkey. We have seen what prison can be like at the other extreme.

One must also think of families whose sons or daughters found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. One speaks to these decent families and tries to empathise with them. I have been involved in a number of prisoner cases in Britain and Ireland. I have met these families and my heart goes out to them.

On the other hand, I am friends with a family whose father, in his 40s, was shot dead over the Christmas period. I can still remember the young son, 14 years old, running down to the graveyard and throwing himself across his father's grave. Within four years the killer was on the streets, making a second hell for that family. I wish to tease our certain issues because they are important, the first perhaps from a philosophical perspective. If one brutalises prisoners within a regime, one generally brutalises oneself and society because when these prisoners emerge from prison having had this experience, there will be no question of their being improved citizens who have learned from their mistakes. One suffers at the other end of the line.

Nobody is suggesting we have the type of regime that would make it attractive for people to be committed to prison but there is a certain element of attraction. I have watched television footage of young people coming out of the courts after being sentenced and giving the two-finger sign to the cameras and the public. There is no question of any remorse. I am slightly worried that they are being influenced by the image of the hard man and the way their mates or peers will perceive them once they have been sent to prison. A message must be sent, either through the media or community groups, that there is no question of a prison term doing anything for a person's standing in the community. It must be made quite clear that a person has isolated himself or herself from normal decent practice and has not afforded to other people the compassion or understanding which he or she at times claims and demands. This message must go out loud and clear.

In many ways, the prison regime is a reflection of society. If drugs are used, dealt and sold and people come from such an environment, they will bring this culture with them into the prison. One of the most disconcerting messages is the suggestion that drugs are freely available in prisons. There seems to be a certain element of truth in this. Every effort, including mandatory testing with which I fully agree, must be made to ensure that illegal drugs are not accessible in prisons. Irrespective of how they are carried out, these efforts must be made for two reasons. First, the availability of such drugs is to all intents and purposes making the prison regime unmanageable. Second, one is placing a temptation before young people who might have an opportunity of being made, in some way, accessible to society again. We should not bring them into a worse environment than that in which they lived outside prison.

I will extend this point. On one hand, one finds what people might term the habitual criminal, while on the other hand one finds the other type of prisoner who is just unfortunate enough to find himself or herself in that position. We must find some way of segregating in a practical fashion those two types of prisoner. I am aware that efforts to segregate these two groups are always being undertaken and that the open prison is part of this concept. One case with which I am dealing concerns a prisoner in Britain who will, hopefully, be repatriated to Ireland in the very near future. The one appeal the family made was that he should not be put into a regime which would give him no light at the end of the tunnel and which would make him a much worse prospect for any kind of rehabilitation for the future. The family has made heartfelt pleas to me. This is probably an individual case but we must keep it in mind as a general principle. We simply cannot have a situation where there is no hope for reform or rehabilitation.

I have always been very impressed and inspired by John Lonergan, the governor of Mountjoy Prison, and a fellow Tipperary man. I have heard him speak and have always been surprised by his courage in engaging in debate on radio and television programmes. The one thing that comes across is the great balance which exists for him. On one hand, there is the compassionate and human side, but on the other hand there is the question of having to bring about control within society. I am impressed by the manner in which he can harmonise those two concepts. The Minister is also faced by these concepts.

The unauthorised disclosure of information is a cancer in the system. There is nothing worse than reading a report in a tabloid newspaper about what someone in prison did or did not have for breakfast. It is wrong for two reasons to disclose this type of information. First, the information is not being transmitted without a price. The fact that a price is put on it stains the entire character of the prison system and all those good people within it. Second, because this information is reported in a sensationalist fashion, it does not bring home to the public the horror of prison life. If a person is deprived of his or her freedom, this is the ultimate punishment. It sends out the wrong message if one ignores the fact of the deprivation of freedom and depicts some type of luxurious situation within the prison system.

We must believe that good will always triumph over evil. If we do not believe this, we and society face difficulties. With this in mind, giving people the opportunity, even within the prison regime, to develop their full potential is absolutely vital, even if they do not succeed. They must feel that this is an extension of what would have been available to them outside prison. I do not see this as a luxury. I see it as a practical contribution in the context of humanity and, above all, in the context of rehabilitation. Hopefully, in the final analysis, if one listens to a prisoner who has emerged from prison speak about the experience after being rehabilitated, one will hear one of the most powerful messages that can be given.

I always find it very distressing when I hear of a death in prison. I believe that sometimes such deaths are due to the environment, particularly overcrowding of cells. Hearing about more than one death in a prison, given the brutal nature of such deaths and the silence which follows, makes it clear that some way must be found to deal with them. I am not saying it is central to the overall issue but it sends out the wrong message that a jungle exists within the prison, there is no control and people can do exactly what they please. Only a small number of deaths take place in prison, but when two or three deaths follow each other, it makes one feel particularly uneasy.

I also compliment the Minister on the manner in which he is moving forward the plans for new prisons. As in the case of schools and factories, there will always be someone who will object to any development that interferes in some way with his or her landscape. I am not taking from any legitimate arguments such people may have, but if we cannot progress with the building programme, how will we handle some of the problems in the archaic prisons we already have? How will we tackle the many issues we face? The Minister is deserving of our full support.

I am glad the two aims are reform and modernisation. Modernisation without reform or reform without modernisation would not be a particularly good policy. The Minister has encapsulated that particularly well in what he has put forward. There are no quick fixes and the Minister knows this. He also knows he did not create the society we have, which is part of a new development within the world. The Minister is trying to tackle that. He has, to some extent, tried to tackle it in the past and correct it for the future. I have no doubt that he has the will, tenacity and commitment to do this.