Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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214. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if reforms have been introduced to the prison system arising from recommendations of prison visiting committee over the past ten years; and if so, the nature of the reforms. [40343/17]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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A feature of the Irish Prison Service (IPS) is consistent and on-going reform. This process is instructed and informed by many sources: principally from the IPS itself and the Minister for Justice and Equality but also, for example, from recommendations contained in reports of the Inspector of Prisons, the Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), various UN Committees and, of course, reports of the Visiting Committees attached to individual prisons. Many of these recommendations overlap or have a common theme.

Over the past number of years the IPS has made many changes in programmes, policies, regimes and infrastructure to improve the lives of prisoners and thereby to create a safer community.  Many of these improvements were suggested by the entities referenced above, including Visiting Committees.

These improvements include, inter alia:

- A reduction in the numbers of prisoners in custody to the point where overcrowding is all but eliminated in the prison system;

- A capital programme to enhance the quality of accommodation and which has almost eliminated the practise of 'slopping out';

- An Incentivised Regimes Policy which encourages prisoners to engage with the services available and provides tangible evidence of the benefit of such engagement;

- The ending of detention of juveniles in the adult prison system.

- The introduction of Integrated Sentence Management;

- The expansion of drug treatment programmes;

- The significant reduction of the number of prisoners on solitary confinement;

- The introduction of fines legislation which will, over time, eliminate the need for persons convicted of a fines offence to be sent to prison in all but the most serious of cases;

- The introduction of a Community Return Programme and a Community Support Scheme which greatly improved the sentence management of suitable prisoners;

- The current engagement with the Office of the Ombudsman to establish a comprehensive Prisoner Complaints system;

- The introduction of a Families Imprisonment Group which encourages and supports greater family contact to assist those serving a sentence.

In recent years the Prison Service has published two Strategic Plans. The first plan, from 2012 - 2015, focused on 6 key strategic actions, namely Prisoner Numbers, Prison Progression, Prisoner Programmes, Management and Staffing, the Prison Estate and Legislation consolidation. The current Prison Service strategic plan 2016-2018 focuses on 4 key strategies, namely Staff Support, Prisoner Support, Victim Support and Enhancing Organisational Capacity.  The progress made over the lifetime of these strategies is published on a yearly basis in the Irish Prison Service Annual Report.

These Strategic Plans as well as the Annual Reports are published on the Irish Prison Service's website www.irishprisons.ie.