Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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488. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality further to Parliamentary Question No. 602 of 11 October 2022, if she has received the necessary information from the Irish Prison Service; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [56727/22]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy's question of 11 October asked about the number of days that educational programmes were prevented from proceeding due to staff shortages in the Irish Prison Service from 2020 to date, by prison institution in tabular form and also that I make a statement on the matter.

While it was not possible to obtain all of the information requested to fully respond to the Deputy on that date, I am happy to advise that the information is now set out in tabular form below.

I can also advise the Deputy that the Irish Prison Service provides a wide range of rehabilitative programmes to those in custody.  These programmes include education, vocational training, healthcare, psychiatric, psychological, counselling, welfare and spiritual services.  These programmes are available in all prisons and all prisoners are eligible to use these service.

The Department of Education provides an allocation of 220 whole time teacher equivalents to the Prison Service through the Education and Training Boards.  Education in prisons is delivered with a focus on providing education which is quality assured, student centred and which facilitates lifelong learning.  In general, education programmes are adapted to take account of the diversity of the prisoner population and the complex nature of prison life, including segregation requirements and high levels of prisoner turnover.  The partnership endeavours to meet the needs of prisoners through helping them cope with their sentence, achieve personal development and prepare for life after release.

During the Covid pandemic, in the same way that schools in the community were closed, the prison schools were significantly impacted and closed for periods in line with the various announcements made by Government, advice from Public Health/HSE and the Prison Service National Infection Control Team.

Covid aside, a key challenge for the Irish Prison Service is to ensure that prisoners have regular and consistent access to the Prison Education Centre and Work and Training programmes. Unfortunately the loss of a substantial number of staff on a daily basis to cover court escort activity and hospital in-patient and out-patient appointments can have an adverse impact on the opening of schools and work and training programmes.

In order to minimise any impact on other services, the Prison Service is committed to strengthening the numbers of staff assigned to the Prison Service Escort Corps so as to free up other staff to support prison based programmes. Increased funding has been made available to this end in Q 4 of 2022 and, further, under Budget 2023, a €6.5m additional staffing package was secured for the Prison Service to provide for sufficient staff recruitment to support rehabilitation and training. This will support both improvements in opening and access to prisoner services including education services. I have been assured that the Prison Service will monitor and audit the application of these additional resources for commensurate improvements in opening times and access to prisoner services. 

The following are the details of the Prison Education Centres full and partial closures due to redeployments or absences for the period January 2020 to September 2022.

**NOTE:Wheatfield Main and Wheatfield North Three together comprise Wheatfield Education Centre. The North Three School remains closed since 12th March 2020 due to Covid and staff shortages. No statistics have been included for the North Three School after 12^thMarch 2020.