Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleagues Senators Bacik and Hayden for proposing and seconding this motion. It is yet again an opportunity for the Seanad to show that penal reform is not a political football but that we have an interest in improving the system at heart. There has been no disagreement, or at least there will be no disagreement on the motion today.

The difficulty facing any Minister, and the Minister of State, Deputy Dara Murphy is very welcome, in trying to set up or improve the penal system is whether one views the purpose of the process as a method of punishing the offender or by reforming it, encourage the offender to lead a better life. When one takes the approach of trying to reform the system, one encounters the "flog them and hang them" brigade. Some people believe those who go to prison should be in prison and they need to be punished for what they have done. The heart of the debate about the penal system is what underpins it. By and large the people have never held extreme viewpoints on what should be done with offenders. We have been fuddling along in the middle. As time passes it appears that we are more in favour of punishment than in reforming the system. I would not like to see that continue.

No system can be repaired overnight. People are still slopping out in the 21st century and I would like to believe that could be repaired overnight. The greater issues about how to improve the system for prisoners has to be done with thought and care. Much of the work has been done and I would hate to see us embarking on another phase of research, when an enormous body of research that has been conducted worldwide and in Ireland is available on approaches we might consider.

The issue is whether the Government agrees the purpose of the penal system is to punish or to reform offenders. Everything will be built on that premise. As long as we are torn in the middle of that debate we will never be able to make progress. Sometimes the Government finds it hard to say that it wants to improve standards so that when people come out of prison they will have a better life, and are members of society. It is acknowledged that they have offended and have done wrong things, and seriously wrong things, but that we accept that society is comprised of people who make mistakes as well as those who never end up behind bars.

I have been in several prisons and in several institutions for young offenders, both here and in the UK. What I will never forget is the terrible sense of oppression and of being closed in, as well as the extraordinary smell that comes from being inside a building where one really cannot get out. In a way, those who have never been in prison and talk about punishing people and sending them to prison do not understand at all what the removal of freedom means to people. Ultimately the punishment is that one is in a place where one cannot leave of one's own free will. Surely the punishment starts there and we should be looking to create systems to restore some humanity and look for a more humane system. We should look for the implementation of many of the recommendations in these reports.

This is not an easy task and the subject will not be solved overnight, albeit some of the specifically outrageous things that go on can be dealt with quickly. Senator O'Donovan's example of a man driving for a tractor part and ending up in prison is ridiculous and makes a nonsense of the whole system. It is a tiny part of a wider picture. I for one take the view that we are all human. We all make mistakes, some of them very serious but as a mark of the maturity of our society we want to show we understand that people who go to prison are nonetheless still people and need to be treated with dignity and respect. It is up to us as public representatives and as a government to try to find a way to reflect that in our penal system.