: I do not wish to start this debate on a note of acrimony, but I believe the laws of debate relating to Question Time and Private Notice Questions should be revised. This question should be dealt with more appropriately at Question Time. I know the Chair cannot do anything about this but I want to take this opportunity to say that this is not a question for the Adjournment but one where the Minister should be given an opportunity to put the facts before the people and the House. However, that is not covered in Standing Orders and we have to deal with it on the adjournment.
I find myself in a difficult position because I do not know the facts of the case, and this is the difficulty. The Minister in charge of security in the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, should make the facts known without a Deputy having to come here and raise the matter on the adjournment. There has been a great deal of public disquiet as to why two high security risk prisoners should be in Dundrum without adequate security precautions being taken to make sure they could not escape.
Most adults realise that one of the most dominant thought in a prisoner's mind is to escape. That is natural. Every person sentenced, whether it is for six months or 30 years, wants to plan his escape. It is on the cards that people can bluff their way by saying they are sick and be referred to the Central Mental Hospital from where I am told a blind man could escape. I realise that there is a health aspect involved here, and I fully accept that in a mental hospital such as Dundrum there must be facilities which will help to rehabilitate patients. It is going a bit far to accept that as an argument as to why two prisoners, particularly one who is known to be highly skilled in the use of explosives, should be allowed to walk the grounds, wander away from the main party and jump over the wall, conveniently having it pre-arranged for a rope ladder to be there. It is asking too much to accept the new found thinking of the medical profession to ignore the fact that people who are now serving long terms of imprisonment can plan to be put into hospital which is the easiest route of escape.
If this happens again would any prisoner in our high security prisons who generally needs psychiatric treatment, or who has a nervous breakdown or who becomes so depressed locked up in jail that he need specialist attention, be questioned? If he is taken to Dundrum will the facilities which were lacking in this case be lacking then too? This poses a further question. If these two people are apprehended, and I hope they will be recaptured soon, will they be sent back to Dundrum or will they return to the prisons from which they came, one to the Curragh and the other to Portlaoise? I fully accept that both prisoners were sent there on medical evidence, but will the Minister for Health or the Minister for Justice ignore the medical report which was strong enough to send them there in the first place, and put them back into proper custody?
Is Dundrum a suitable place to keep high risk prisoners who may need these medical services in future? I am told by people who live close to the prison that it must be the simplest place from which to escape in Ireland and maybe even in Europe. I am told it is quite easy to plan an escape. All a person has to do is to take possession of a house or find a vacant house, use it and get in contact with the people inside.
We know the history of prisoners using explosives inside prisons. We have had a very sad history of this. I do Not want to go into detail on this occasion because primarily my reason for raising this question on the Adjournment was to get information from the Minister about the lack of security. I am not going to speak at great length, but in view of what happened is the Minister satisfied that the original transfer to Dundrum was made on valid medical grounds or can this House and the general public assume that the transfer was simply the first phase in an elaborate escape plan? Is it part of an on-going process? I would welcome information on the circumstances in which the transfer was made and I would like an assurance about the future, particularly in view of the record of one of the prisoners.
I would also like an assurance from the Minister and from his colleague, the Minister for Justice, that if there is an escape from prison, either from Dundrum Central Medical Hospital or from any State prison, immediately the general public will be told how and when it happened and will be given the full facts. It is wrong in the extreme that the information should leak out.
I understand—and I stand willing to be corrected on this—that but for a mistake by someone, I do not want to give the officers name, who gave the information on the telephone believing that he was speaking to somebody else, we might not have known about this yet. This is wrong, and the Minister should tell the House exactly what happened and if security is needed in future. We do not want to be a laughing stock for the rest of Europe. If any of us found ourselves on the wrong side of the law and in prison, the first thing we would do would be to plan our escape. That is normal and has been the practice since the beginning of time and will continue to be the practice.
Our job, as custodians of law and order, is to see that people sentenced to prison for crimes against society serve their time. The responsibility is on us to make sure that there are no easy escape routes, which is what happened on this occasion.
