Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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140. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the status of the report into the circumstances surrounding the escape of a prisoner (details supplied) requested for by his predecessor following the stabbing of two prison officers in Tallaght hospital in February 2018; if the report will be made available; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52359/18]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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The Director General of the Irish Prison Service (IPS) was asked to provide a full report on all of the circumstances surrounding the escape of the prisoner (details supplied) during a hospital appointment at Tallaght Hospital on 17th February 2015. This report was received in March 2015 and it sets out the security and operational circumstances of the incident and related actions and recommendations.  For operational and security reasons this report will not be published. The Health and Safety Authority also conducted an investigation into this incident under its statutory powers and issued an improvement notice which the IPS has implemented in full.

Subsequent to this incident, the State Claims Agency was asked to conduct a major review of assaults on operational prison staff in Ireland. That review followed a number of violent physical assaults on IPS staff by prisoners, including the incident referred to in the Deputy's question.  The aim of the review was to determine the root cause of the issue, to reflect on the potential for future such occurrences and to make recommendations for improvement.

The review was published in November 2016 and the recommendations are being implemented by the IPS.  One of those recommendations implemented by the IPS was the development of a national escorting standard to improve the security and safety in the conduct of escorts across the prison estate.