Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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347. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality why records of prisoner telephone calls recorded on the old Cork and Limerick prisoner telephone system were destroyed during capital works at the new Cork Prison; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5493/16]

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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348. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality to set down the date or dates when records of prisoner telephone calls recorded on the old Cork Limerick prisoner telephone system were destroyed. [5494/16]

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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349. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if any requests to the Irish Prison Service by a person (details supplied) for copies of records of telephone calls from 2009 were outstanding when the recordings from the old Cork Limerick telephone system, including those of the person in question, were destroyed. [5496/16]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 347 to 349, inclusive, together.

I can inform the Deputy that no prisoner telephone calls were destroyed during the capital works at the new Cork Prison as a result of the building works.

The policy of the Irish Prison Service in relation to the retention of telephones calls provides that the retention period for recorded phone calls on the Irish Prison Service Storage Area Network is three years. After three years, recorded calls (other than those relating to an incident that is deemed active) shall be deleted from the Storage Area Network. The reason for this policy is the high cost of retention of and access to prisoner telephone calls. This Policy has been in place since May 2015.

The records for the person referred to by the Deputy were deleted week beginning the 23 November 2015.

I am advised by the Irish Prison Service that on the 23 November 2015 there was one outstanding request by the person referred to for "any recordings of telephone conversations between him and his solicitor during a specified period of time in 2009" which was at that time the subject of clarification between the Irish Prison Service and the person concerned. However, as advised to his solicitor, due to legal privilege, it is not Irish Prison Service policy to record telephone conversations between solicitors and clients on designated phone lines. The recordings that were destroyed would not have included any phone calls to persons who were nominated as solicitors. There were no phone calls in existence or destroyed which corresponded to the clarified request.