Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I welcome the debate scheduled for this afternoon on women's participation in politics and thank the Leader for at last acceding to the request from me and many other Members for such a debate. I am delighted the debate will take place today and look forward to debating, in particular, the recommendations of our sub-committee's report on women's participation. I am aware the former Minister, Niamh Bhreathnach, is in the Visitors Gallery and I welcome her and the many others with an interest in this topic.

I echo the concern of Senator Fitzgerald and others about the resignation of governor Kathleen McMahon. In that context, I call for a debate on conditions in prison. I and others have been calling for that debate for some time. We need to debate the serious criticisms the former governor of the Dóchas Centre has made of the women's prison and conditions there. I have been in the Dóchas Centre many times. It was built just over ten years ago as a model prison. It was a flagship prison in terms of rehabilitative prisons, but we now see chronic overcrowding in it to the extent that spaces designed for one occupant now have bunk beds installed, which is one of the major problems the governor identified. Perhaps more serious is the fact that many women in the prison are such low risk offenders that they should not have been sent to prison in the first place. Senator Norris and others spoke about women who were sent there for non-payment of fines. It is outrageous that in 2010 we are still sending women to prison, many of whom have young children, for these matters. We need a serious debate on conditions in prison and the use of imprisonment for women. We need to look at reports such as the Corston report in England which recommended that the use of imprisonment for women should be completely overhauled and that prison should be reserved both for women and young offenders as a sanction of last resort to be used only for high risk violent offenders.

I also seek a debate on the proposal to merge the National Archives and the Irish Manuscripts Commission with the National Library. I have raised this matter before and it is of serious concern. At a recent conference in Trinity College on the National Archives many experts expressed serious concern about the decision.