Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 136: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the rehabilitation goals and targets set for prisoners annually since 2002; the annual targets and goals set for 2009 and 2010; the funding provided in each of these years for rehabilitation services; and the performance targets against which this is measured. [36448/08]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 137: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the number of existing rehabilitation programmes in each prison; the number of staff allocated to each rehabilitation programme; the number of prisoners on existing programmes; the capacity of each programme; and the average cost to rehabilitate a prisoner on each programme. [36449/08]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 138: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the cost of fully resourcing and staffing rehabilitation programmes in respect of the entire prison population. [36450/08]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 139: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if prisoners rehabilitation needs are assessed on entering prison; if so, the percentage of prisoners deemed to require rehabilitation on arrival; the waiting time for entry into rehabilitation; and the average time spent on a rehabilitation programme. [36451/08]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 136 to 139, inclusive, together.

Prisoner rehabilitation involves significant multi-dimensional 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 healthcare, psychiatric, psychological, educational, 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.

As a result of the Programme for Organisational Change, there has been significant expansion and development of vocational training programmes. For example, the Work Training Service now has an authorised complement of over 250 prison service posts and over 90 workshops cater for in excess of 800 prisoners each day.

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. The Department of Education and Science provide an allocation of whole-time teacher equivalents to the prisons through the VECs (220 in the academic year 2007/08). This enables education to be offered in all prisons including provision for the summer months and also special teaching arrangements where prisoners are segregated.

The Irish Prison Service is also engaged in introducing an enhanced model of sentence management for prisoners (Integrated Sentence Management — ISM). ISM will involve a new emphasis on prisoners taking greater personal responsibility for their own development through active engagement with both specialist and non-specialist services in the prisons. The end result will be a prisoner-centred approach to working with prisoners with provision for initial assessment, goal setting and periodic review to measure progress. The development and roll-out this model is planned to take place on a phased basis over the lifetime of the National Development Plan 2007-2013. The new system is currently being piloted in two Dublin prisons. Following the conclusion of these pilot programmes, an evaluation will take place which will inform future policy in this area.

The 2008 gross estimate provision for the Irish Prison Service is €394.346 million. Due to the multifaceted nature of rehabilitation it is not possible to disaggregate from this total the element that relates solely to this particular area of expenditure.

Finally, the Probation Service also 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. The Service also provides supervision in certain cases under temporary release provisions.