asked the Minister for Justice the position regarding the implementation of the recommendations of the various Prison Visiting Committees, including St. Patrick's Institution; and if he will make a general statement on this matter.
Written Answers. - Prison Visiting Committees.
414.
Recommendations made by visiting committees either at their meetings or in their annual reports receive careful consideration and frequently it is possible to adopt them.
The report of the visiting committee of St. Patrick's Institution for 1975 made several recommendations. Some of the recommendations, such as those for improvements in the educational facilities, accord with the policy of the administration for the development of the service as a whole. Progress in that development is as rapid as possible having regard to the difficulties that exist. Some other recommendations, however, represent a view of the respective roles of the visiting committee and the Governor and of the authority of the latter which I am not able to accept and which my predecessor did not accept. For example, recommendations that would give the visiting committee appellate jurisdiction over the Governor and that would put members of the staff (including the Governor apparently) in the position of having to appear before the committee to defend themselves against accusations by a prisoner in the presence of the prisoner, who, moreover, according to the recommendations would be entitled to the assistance of a member of the committee as advocate, would, I have no doubt, lead in practice to the total undermining of the Governor's authority in the institution.
I shall bear the individual recommendations in that report in mind but I do not consider it necessary to make any kind of formal record of any changes that may be decided on from time to time in areas of the administration of the institution which are dealt with in the reports of the visiting committee.