Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 232: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will provide a list of those matters not related to imprisonment for which prisoners will be required to pay for escort services outside the prison under Section 37 of the Prisons Bill 2006; the number of escorts that fell into this category each year in 2004, 2005, and 2006 to date; and the related costs of these escorts for each of those years. [38997/06]

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 233: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will provide a list of the those electronic devices for which prisoners will be required to pay for access to under Section 37 of the Prisons Bill 2006; and the related costs of providing access to these devices to prisoners each year in 2004, 2005, and 2006 to date. [38998/06]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 232 and 233 together.

Section 37 of the Prisons Bill 2006 allows the Minister to provide for charges to be made to prisoners for goods or services that are not generally available to prisoners or are not available on an unlimited basis. This would include telephone calls, access to electronic devices, private medical treatment or escorts provided outside the prison for matters not related to their imprisonment. This section will provide a statutory basis for provisions in the Draft Prison Rules (a copy of which is available on my Department's website at www.justice.ie) which allow a Prison Governor to charge for the provision of certain services over and above the standard provision to all prisoners, such as use of the videolink, telephone calls and access to materials relating to current affairs (e.g. newspapers, magazines etc.).

Access to many of these services are currently provided without charge and it is not intended to begin charging for all of these services. For example no charge is currently made for the making of a certain amount of phone calls. Prisoners are currently entitled to a daily phone call including calls to their legal advisor, and this will continue to be the position.

Prisoners are provided with access to Healthcare services on an equivalent basis to citizens in the general community who are covered by the GMS (Medical Card) service. Section 37 of the Prisons Bill 2006 allows for the Prison Rules to provide, where it is deemed necessary (on the basis of non-convicted status) to facilitate a prisoner with access to elective health care outside the public system, that the prisoner will be responsible for the costs associated with facilitating such provision. Provision of necessary healthcare to all prisoners on an equivalent basis to that provided under the public health system will continue to be funded by the State.

In addition to the escorts costs that would arise in the facilitation of access to elective healthcare outside the public system, inmates are charged for escorts outside of their place of detention in relation to civil proceedings against third parties. It is not proposed to charge for escorts where the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform or an individual governor is listed as a defendant or co-defendant in such proceedings. It is also not proposed to charge prisoners for appointments relating to any matters before the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

In 2004 there were 29 escorts relating to civil proceedings amounting to €19,247.78. In 2005, there were 21 such escorts amounting to €8,730.11 and in 2006 to date there were 16 escorts amounting to €5,228.53.

The overall purpose of this Section is to future-proof the legislative underpinning of such charges which may become necessary to allow the provision of further services to prisoners, or to provide for currently unforeseen services to prisoners in the future. It would be unfortunate if the lack of a legislative provision would serve to hamper the use of emerging technologies to improve the lot of prisoners. For that reason it is not possible to give a definitively comprehensive list of services or items which may be covered by it.