Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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590. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the extent to which specific procedures are in place to ensure that first-time prisoners are given priority towards education and rehabilitative training, with particular reference to reducing the influence on them of more hardened criminals; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55446/23]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Irish Prison Service provides a wide range of rehabilitative and educational programmes to those in custody that aim to offer purposeful activity to those serving a sentences and encourage them to lead law abiding lives on release. These programmes are available to people in custody and all are eligible and allowed to use the services, including those who are first-time offenders. The Irish Prison Service does not collect data on the number of first-time offenders who availed of these services.

The Irish Prison Service Strategy 2023 - 2027 commits to deliver a prisoner-centred, multidisciplinary approach to working with people in custody and their families to achieve better outcomes. This aims to enhance and extend the Prisoners Services Model to accommodate growth in prisoner numbers, and to further facilitate purposeful activity, including healthcare, therapeutic interventions (via psychologists and addiction counsellors), education, pathways to employment and resettlement.

The Department of Education and Skills provides an allocation of 220 whole time teacher equivalents to the Service. The focus is on providing education which is quality assured, student centred and which facilitates lifelong learning. As well as seeking to draw on best practice in adult and further education in the community, curriculum development that is specific to prison circumstances take place such as courses on addiction, health issues and offending behaviour.

Other areas where there has been significant progress in prison education are in physical education, in the provision for higher education, in the arts, in preparing people for release and supporting their transition to life, and often to education, on the outside.

The prisons Work and Training Service make available work, work-training and other purposeful activities to all those in custody. Work Training Officers have been appointed and assigned to areas such as catering, laundry, industrial cleaning and industrial skills. Significant work is being progressed in order to better integrate Education and Work Training provision, including the introduction of an apprenticeship model.

The "Working to Change Social Enterprise Strategy - 2021-2023" sets out my Department’s direction for supporting employment options for people with convictions by working to remove systemic barriers so that people can make sustainable changes. It builds upon a solid foundation of employment supports already in place across the criminal justice sector and is a collaboration between the Irish Prison Service, Probation Service and the Department of Justice.

The lifetime of the Working to Change strategy is now coming to an end. In the first half of 2023, my Department confirmed a follow on strategy is to be developed and work in that regard is ongoing.

The Deputy will also be aware that the Prison Education Taskforce was established on 23 May 2023 and is jointly chaired by the Minister of Further Education and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Minister of State with responsibility for Law Reform in the Department of Justice. The aim of this Taskforce is to ensure improvements in the work and training area and greater alignment between prison education and the tertiary education system.

The Irish Prison Service Psychology Service provides assessment and intervention and operates a ‘proactive’ referral service for particular cohorts of people in custody. The Psychology Service proactively engages with the following groups of people (some of whom are first-time offenders):

18 – 24 year olds who are committed to custody with a sentence of one year or more, without Post Release Supervision with the Probation Service;

People committed to custody with a sentence of two years or more for a violent offence, without Post Release Supervision with the Probation Service;

People convicted of sexual violence; and

People sentenced to life imprisonment.

Of particular relevance to first-time or young offenders is a programme for 18-24 year olds in custody known as the Building Identity Programme. This focuses on early engagement and helps them to learn more about themselves and why they came to prison, leading to the development of a bespoke care plan (‘sentence plan’) which identifies what key rehabilitation services the young person should engage with in order to support desistance on release from prison. Research by Creavin (2022) found that the initiative supported young people establish connection and trust with professionals, often for the first-time, instilled hope and reformulated a sense of self-identity. It also found that young people drew connections between various factors that had influenced their journeys to prison allowing them to look at their behaviour in a more coherent way.

Finally, the Psychology Service also deliver the ‘Pathway to Change’ Programme, which is co-facilitated with psychologists and experienced experts. This group programme is a motivational offence-focused intervention, typically attended by people with a violence history and who are under-motivated in relation to rehabilitation. Recent research by University College Cork indicates positive impacts in relation to motivation, self-efficacy and more effective sentence planning following the group. The introduction of an expert has witnessed significant benefits in terms of integrating theory and real-life practice.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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591. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the extent to which adequate or sufficient prison spaces are available to meet requirements at present; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55448/23]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware the Irish Prison Service does not have the option of refusing committals and must accept all people committed by the Courts Service. The prison system is under increasing pressure with factors such as ongoing population growth, increasing Garda and Judicial resources, and more frequent Court sittings, all contributing to a rising prison population.

I can advise the Deputy that the Irish Prison Service and my Department are committed to providing safe and secure custody for all people committed to prison while ensuring a safe working environment for staff. Officials in the Irish Prison Service and the Department are continuously working to identify short, medium and longer term proposals to help manage the current capacity issues in our prisons.

Where the number of people in custody exceeds the maximum capacity in any prison, my officials in the Irish Prison Service make every effort to deal with this through a combination of inter-prison transfers and structured Temporary Release. Decisions in relation to temporary release are considered on a case by case basis and the safety of the public is paramount when those decisions are made.

In addition, a Prison Overcrowding Response Group has been established, with officials from across the Department, the Irish Prison Service, Probation Service, Courts Service, and An Garda Síochána. This group is currently examining proposals to address overcrowding.

While focused on rehabilitation and reducing offending, we also need to continue to invest in our prison estate, to ensure that it is modern and fit for purpose and that it has the capacity to accommodate those committed to prison by the courts.

In recent years, works have been completed to modernise the Mountjoy complex, a new prison was constructed in Cork and additional prisoner accommodation was provided in the Midlands Prison.

Furthermore, the Training Unit in Mountjoy was reopened providing an additional 96 spaces and the opening of new male accommodation in Limerick in late 2022 has provided an additional 90 cell spaces. The new standalone female prison in Limerick is now providing an additional 22 female cell spaces, bringing additional capacity across the estate to in excess of 200 new spaces.

Plans have also been outlined for 4 capital projects at Castlerea, Cloverhill, the Midlands and Mountjoy prisons to deliver a maximum of 620 additional spaces. I am continuing to engage with the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to progress an agreed schedule of capital builds, including the delivery of additional Prison spaces.