Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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61. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the steps being taken to ensure family contact for prisoners continues during Covid-19. [41892/20]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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At the outset I would like to take this opportunity to commend the management and staff of Irish Prison Service for the assured and safe management of our prisons during this pandemic.

The Deputy will be aware that the IPS has put in place a range of measures to protect our prison population from Covid-19. Prisoners are a recognised vulnerable group for a number of reasons including their general levels of health, age and addictions issues and an outbreak of Covid-19 in a prison could have potentially devastating consequences.

Every effort has been made by the IPS to continue physical visits during this pandemic however, following Government and NPHET advice it was necessary to suspend physical visits to prisons, firstly in March and more recently in October.  The Service is acutely aware of the need for prisoners to maintain contact with their families and in that regard a new video visit system was introduced which has allowed families to continue to support those in custody during this time.

All prisoners are entitled to one 20 minute video visit per week to nominated family and friends. The feedback from prisoners has been very positive as the visit allows people to connect with their families in their homes. The feedback from families has also been positive as it allows families to continue to support prisoners without having to make long journeys to prison to avail of a visit. The IPS introduced a support line to provide information to families on how to connect to the video visit and assist with any connection difficulties. The Prison Service fully appreciate how important contact with family and friends are to people in custody. When physical visits recommence, the Service will also retain the option of video calls for prisoners.

A number of useful guides and videos have also been developed, in a number of languages, and these are available on the Prison Service website.

It was the case that some family members were visiting prisoners in order to lodge money to the prisoner’s account for their use in the prison tuck shop however, the IPS has introduced a number of new methods for the electronic transfer of money making it much easier for families.

I am advised that in addition to video visits,  additional phone calls have been also been facilitated for prisoners to allow them to keep in contact with loved ones. In this regard the Prison Service is granting an additional daily phone call to all those in custody during the Christmas period.

While these are important initiatives I recognise that physical visits are hugely important to prisoners and their families and I am pleased to advise that the IPS has announced that arrangements have been made to allow all those in custody to book a physical family visit between the 16th December and the 6th of January.

Each prisoner will be entitled to one physical visit during the period, which will be 15 minutes in duration. In order to ensure that visits are conducted as safely as possible, visits will be limited to two people of which one may be a child.  The risk posed by Covid-19 still remains therefore in order to prevent the potential spread of infection all visits will be behind clear screens and visitors and prisoners will be required to wear a face mask at all times. No physical contact between prisoners and family members will be permitted.

The normal security screening procedures will be in place however, all visitors will also be subject to the Covid-19 screening procedure including having their temperature taken. Visitors are asked not to attend the prison if they have any Covid-19 symptoms, have been in contact with a person who has gone for testing for the virus or is a confirmed case or have been abroad in the proceeding 14 days.

The IPS have asked that  all packages and mail reaches the prison no later than December 10th 2020 to ensure that it reaches loved ones before Christmas. Due to Covid-19 infection control restrictions all mail must be quarantined for a period before being delivered to the person who is to receive it. This, added to the normal security arrangement for screening mail, means that any letter or card sent to prisons this year should be sent as early as possible.