Rónán Mullen (Independent)

In the context of the comments made by prison officers on overcrowding in prisons, I call for a debate on the prison system, criminal justice and our response to crime in society. It appears Cork Prison houses double the number of prisoners it should and, as we know, Mountjoy Prison is seriously overcrowded. The Prison Service has spoken about the expansion of prisons and increases to the number of places under its programme of modernisation, but we need to discuss whether those responses are sufficient. We need to consider alternatives to prison for non-violent offenders and heed prison officers when they point out the obvious by warning that overcrowding increases the risks of aggression among prisoners, illness and problems in the system for prisoners as well as for those who have the task of working with them.

Instead of focusing on a punitive model, we need to seek the rehabilitation of prisoners not only for their own sake, although we cannot overlook their human rights, but also in order to work smarter rather than harder on preventing crime in our society. For everybody's sake, it makes sense to work towards the rehabilitation of prisoners. We are being short-sighted about crime if all we think about is expanding the number of prison places. The Seanad is the place to hold the debate on how we can foster a more visionary approach than has been taken thus far, not only for the sake of prisoners but also for society as a whole.

I wish to respond briefly to the remarks made by the supposed top human rights watchdog, Mr. Thomas Hammarberg. I agree with him in so far as he spoke about foreign national children who are in danger of being trafficked for exploitation due to the insufficient care provided in State accommodation. I also agree with his warning against placing child offenders in institutions with adult offenders. Quite frankly, however, he hobbles his right to be called a human rights watchdog when in the same breath he calls into question Ireland's law on abortion, which is one of the few civilised laws in that regard in western Europe. It is time we faced up to the fact that people who call themselves advocates of human rights have a duty to society to be consistent rather than selectively support human rights. I would go further by saying there should be no co-operation on the part of this State or its officers with supposed human rights watchdogs who have such questionable views about the equal dignity of all human persons and the equal right to life. We should make it a condition of our co-operation with such personages operating on behalf of international organisations that they do not seek to interfere with our laws——