Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 462: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the progress made in regard to the commitment given in the Programme for Government to invest significantly in rehabilitation for prisoners. [19287/08]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 463: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the progress made in regard to the commitment given in the Programme for Government to ensure that a prisoner's rehabilitation needs are assessed on entering prison and that an appropriate programme is offered based on risk assessment and rehabilitation needs. [19288/08]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 462 and 463 together.

The Irish Prison Service has made significant progress in meeting the commitments contained in the Programme for Government relating to rehabilitation for prisoners. Prisoner rehabilitation involves significant multidimensional input by a diverse range of general and specialist services provided both by the Irish Prison Service and in-reaching statutory and non-statutory services. Amongst these are health care, psychiatric, psychological, educational, work and training, vocational, counselling, welfare and spiritual services. These services are important in addressing offending behaviour, drug and alcohol addiction, missed educational and vocational opportunities, anger management, and self management in the interest of encouraging positive personal development in prisoners, and preparing them for re-integration and resettlement on release from custody.

The Probation Service has an active role during the course of the prisoner's sentence in helping maintain links with family and community agencies, encouraging prisoners to address their offending behaviour and engaging prisoners in individual counselling and group counselling programmes such as offending behaviour, addiction, violence and sex offending. The Service also provides supervision in certain cases under temporary release provisions.

The Irish Prison Service places a strong emphasis on access to educational services and on the provision of work and training activities for prisoners. As a result of the Programme for Organisational Change, there has been a significant expansion and development of vocational training programmes. The Work Training Service comprises an authorised complement of over 250 prison service posts and there are over 90 workshops operating in our prisons actively catering for in excess of 800 prisoners each day. Training activities are chosen to give as much employment as possible for those in prison and to give opportunities to acquire skills which will help them secure employment on their release. External accreditation of certified training is available for a number of courses run within the institutions.

Educational services are now available at all institutions and are provided in partnership with a range of educational agencies in the community including the VECs, Public Library Services, Colleges and the Arts Council. Broad programmes of education are made available which generally follow an adult education approach. During the academic year 2007/08, 220 whole-time-equivalent VEC teachers were the main providers of these education programmes.

The Irish Prison Service is also delivering programmes aimed at reducing the demand for drugs within the prison system through enhanced security measures as well as education, treatment and rehabilitation services for drug-addicted prisoners. The Irish Prison Service Drugs Policy & Strategy — Keeping Drugs Out of Prisons — caters for the expansion of existing drug treatment programmes and further recruitment of dedicated staff. The expansion of these services is being achieved in partnership with community based services and will see a significant improvement in the range, quality and availability of drug treatment service in the prisons. Drug rehabilitation programmes for prisoners involve a significant multidimensional input by a diverse range of general and specialist services provided both by the Irish Prison Service and visiting statutory and non-statutory organisations. Particular initiatives include the provision of detoxification, methadone maintenance, education programmes, an information forum, addiction counselling, drug therapy programmes and the operation of drug free units.

Every effort is made to assist sex offenders in custody who are willing to participate at any level in their personal rehabilitation and relapse prevention. In this regard, there are three forms of direct therapeutic intervention currently available — i.e., individual counselling from the Irish Prison Service's Psychology Service and from the Probation Service; the Sex Offender Programme which has been in operation since 1994, and the Psychiatric Service which provides some support to prisoners in this category.

Significant progress is also being made in the development of programmes based on risk assessment and rehabilitation needs. The Irish Prison Service is developing and rolling-out, between now and 2012, a fully coordinated Integrated Sentence Management System (ISM) across all prisons and places of detention.