Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 53: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his attention has been drawn to a newspaper article (details supplied); his views on its opinion; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31514/09]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The mission of the Irish Prison Service is to provide safe, secure and humane custody for people who are sent to prison. The Service is committed to managing custodial sentences in a way which encourages and supports prisoners in their endeavouring to live law abiding and purposeful lives as valued members of society.

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.

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 of this model is planned to take place on a phased basis with the new system currently being piloted in two Dublin prisons.

In addition 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.

As the Deputy is aware the Government recently re-affirmed its commitment to developing new prison facilities at Thornton Hall to replace the outdated prison facilities at Mountjoy Prison. The current lack of space, the poor physical infrastructure in Mountjoy Prison severely impacts on the ability of the Irish Prison Service and other agencies to provide the range of work training, education, and other rehabilitation programmes expected of a modern prison system.

Building a new prison on a green field site will open up new opportunities for the development of progressive regime facilities that will support the rehabilitation and resettlement of prisoners on completion of their sentence. In developing a design concept for Thornton Hall, the Irish Prison Service will deliver a modern and operationally efficient prison facility which is regime led and which provides safe and secure custody.

A two phase approach is being adopted for the development of the new prison. The first phase involves essential basic work required for the development, including the construction of a dedicated access route and a perimeter wall. This work will proceed in the short term on the basis of separate contracts. It is intended to complete the procurement process for the main prison development while the construction of phase one work is underway. Once a contract is signed for the main prison complex, it will allow for construction to commence immediately.

It is acknowledged that severe mental illness is more significant in the prisoner population compared to the general population. Under current arrangements the Central Mental Hospital (CMH) provides twenty-one Consultant led in-reach forensic mental health sessions weekly to Arbour Hill, Cloverhill, Wheatfield, Mountjoy, the Dóchas Centre, Training Unit, St. Patrick's, Portlaoise and the Midlands Prisons. In Cork, Limerick and Castlerea, specialist in-reach services are in place for Consultant led mental health sessions. Clinicians in other prisons (outside the CMH catchment prisons) arrange transfers to CMH services - mainly in Cloverhill - for assessment or admission to the CMH. Earlier this year, 10 additional beds were made available by the CMH. My officials will continue to keep this issue under review.

It is my intention to reduce, as far as possible, a dependence on imprisonment for default on payment of fines. While very few persons are in prison at any one time solely for non-payment of a fine, I am determined to reduce those numbers further. The Fines Bill 2009 is currently before the House and awaiting Committee Stage. Section 14 of the Bill allows for application to be made to a court to have a fine paid by instalments. The Bill also allows the courts to impose a community service order on a person who has not paid a fine by the due date for payment.

As you will be aware I have also set up a Project Board to examine the whole area of Electronic Monitoring. The final report from that Group is due shortly and that will inform the decision(s) to be made on using EM here for a pilot period as a management tool to support the work of the Gardaí and the Probation Service.