Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I apologise on behalf of the Tánaiste, who unfortunately cannot attend. I assure Senator Bacik that I have noted the individual concerns that she raised and I will relay them to the Tánaiste.

I thank the Senator for giving me the opportunity to discuss the planned repurposing of the training unit place of detention as an older prisoners unit. The training unit is a semi-open facility based within the Mountjoy Prison campus for males aged 18 years and over. As a semi-open prison, prisoners accommodated within the training unit are afforded more latitude in terms of out-of-cell time than prisoners with a higher security rating. A key action of the Irish Prison Service strategic plan, specifically action No. 2.5, is to ensure that older prisoners are identified as a specific group that has particular needs within the prison population. There are a number of such prisoners in the care of the Irish Prison Service who have significant and ongoing health care needs, many of whom are dispersed across the estate, in some cases significant distances away from the health care providers on which they rely.

The development of a bespoke facility to cater for the needs of this specific cohort will allow the Irish Prison Service to provide a physical infrastructure that takes cognisance of the needs of older adults in terms of mobility, access and appropriate age-related services, forge strong strategic links with statutory and community services critical to effective care provision for older persons in custody, ensure that age-related mental health and related social needs are met through appropriate assessment and intervention methods, including early detection, and ensure that older adults in prison are given opportunities for participation in meaningful and purposeful activity or occupation to meet their needs, preferences and capacities.

The House will be well aware that significant investment has been undertaken by the Government in Mountjoy Prison. As a result, overcrowding has been eliminated and all of the wings in Mountjoy Prison have been completely refurbished, thereby facilitating the elimination of the practice of slopping out and the significant enhancement of regime activities and facilities available to prisoners. To facilitate the refurbishment of the prison, one division of Mountjoy Prison, equating to 125 cells, has been continuously closed since 2010. With the recent completion of the refurbishment project, however, these cells are now available for occupation.

As a result of the developments I have outlined, an opportunity now presents itself to migrate prisoners to Mountjoy Prison from the training unit in order to repurpose the existing facility into a dedicated unit to accommodate older prisoners. The temporary closure of the unit will not result in any reduction in the regime or sentence management arrangements currently in place for prisoners accommodated there. Given the existing capacity within Mountjoy Prison, prisoners currently accommodated in the training unit will be transferred to an enhanced area of the prison, which will allow them to continue to avail of the level of openness of regime and provide improved, more structured activities than those currently available within the training unit. Moreover, there will be no interference with the sentence management plans in place for prisoners, many of which are based on recommendations of the Parole Board. Likewise, the temporary closure of the training unit will not result in the displacement from Mountjoy of staff currently serving in the unit. Staff will be reassigned across the Mountjoy campus and the resulting surplus of staff will be redistributed across the service by way of current voluntary transfer arrangements. The latter will have the significant added benefit of allowing the Irish Prison Service to consolidate its staffing resources and will greatly assist in addressing current staffing shortfalls, pending the training of recruit prison officers, which is scheduled to commence later this month.

In addition, a new lifers unit has recently opened in Wheatfield Place of Detention, offering prisoners a more open prison regime. It is the intention of Mountjoy Prison management to establish a second such unit for suitable life sentence prisoners, including those transferring from the training unit.