James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator. At the outset, I wish to acknowledge her advocacy for this sector and many other issues in the justice area. As she said, I had the pleasure of working with her on the justice committee for a number of years. I also thank her for arranging a visit to Mountjoy Prison in which I participated. She worked with the inmates through the medium of drama, essentially, an art, showing the individuals as human beings, for better or worse, as all of us are, as opposed to numbers in a prison system. That was a really worthwhile exercise. I commend her on her work on that. It was really important. Certainly, I left with a different mindset after that exercise. I want to acknowledge that.

I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee. I can update the House that in July 2023, a prison overcrowding response group, composed of officials from the Department of Justice and representatives from relevant agencies, was established to consider measures to address capacity issues across the prison estate. This summer in June 2024, on foot of a report from that group, the Minister approved a range of actions, and work to implement these is ongoing.

These actions include developing new, innovative responses to deliver structured temporary release for suitable prisoners, progressing actions to increase the use of community service as a priority and advancing legislative changes to support the delivery of community-based sanctions more generally. Justice Plan 2024 commits to a review of the Criminal Justice (Community Sanctions) Bill 2014, and preparations have now commenced for a number of changes to the 2014 general scheme to increase the use of community sanctions.

The Minister is very conscious of the challenges placed on the prison environment and the Irish Prison Service due to the increased prison population. To help address these measures, the Minister secured significant funding in budget 2025 to enhance the existing prison infrastructure and provide additional capacity. The capital budget for the Irish Prison Service will increase by over 70% in 2025 as part of the plan to deliver 1,100 extra spaces between now and 2030 and, accordingly, to hire hundreds of extra staff, with 150 prison staff to be hired in 2025. This is in addition to 240 prison officers recruited in 2024. Funding has also been secured for 130,000 additional staff hours in 2025. This represents one of the fastest ever expansions of prison capacity in Ireland. Works are in progress to deliver over 150 additional spaces by the year end. As part of these plans, the Minister secured capital funding of €159 million for the years 2024 to 2026, including an increase of €49.5 million through the most recent national development plan allocations, which will support the delivery of these plans.

Separately, to further consider future prison capacity needs, the Minister established a new working group to make recommendations on the numbers and types of prison capacity needed out to 2035. As part of this work, the group will also make recommendations on the future use of the Thornton Hall site. An initial report will be provided to the Minister next month in November.

In summary, there are a number of actions, including the Criminal Justice (Community Sanctions) Bill, which is being considered to look at alternative sanctions, the increase in capacity and staffing, which is intended to alleviate some of those overcrowding issues to which the Senator referred, and the additional work in terms of the working group, which is expected to report very shortly. I hope those actions are of some assistance to the Senator's query.