Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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35. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the budgetary and human resources that are available to the prison education service; and if there are any plans to ensure educational supports are available to prisoners during the summer. [60512/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by the Irish Prison Service that education services are available in all prisons and all prisoners are eligible and have access to these services.  Education in prison is delivered in partnership with the Education and Training Boards with a focus on providing education which is quality assured, prisoner centred and which facilitates lifelong learning.

The Department of Education and Skills provides and funds 220 whole time teacher equivalents to the Irish Prison Service through the Education and Training Boards

The 2022 budget for the provision of Education Services in Prisons, including libraries, is €1,265,000. This covers education fees, materials and equipment.

Teachers in prisons are available to provide educational programmes for eleven months of the year.  Educational Centres in prisons are closed for the month of August to allow time for maintenance work and upgrades to take place in the classrooms, if required.

Summer education programmes are run in all prisons during July. These programmes are a continuation of the work undertaken during the normal school period of Sept – Jun.  The preparation and planning for the summer 2023 programme will commence early next year.

I can further advise the Deputy that a prisoner TV information channel, which was developed during the Covid pandemic, enables education courses and learning to take place at times outside the normal school day, such as weekends. It is expected that this will continue to be utilised for the summer programmes.

The Irish Prison Service is in the process of developing its 2023 – 2026 Strategy. Central to this strategy will be building on the lessons learned over the past two years and further developing the new modalities of learning that have been introduced, including providing alternatives to classroom only learning and adopting a blended approach to the delivery of education.

By harnessing new technologies and methods for the delivery of educational content we can ensure that prisoners are able to continue their learning beyond scheduled classes and extend the delivery of education to people who may not be able to attend prison school due to restrictions on their regime.