Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 15 Nov 1979

Vol. 316 No. 11

Supplementary Estimates, 1979. - Vote 24: Garda Síochána (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £13,381,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1979, for the salaries and expenses of the Garda Síochána, including pensions, etc.; for payments of compensation and other expenses arising out of service in the Local Security Force; for the payment of certain witnesses' expenses; and for payment of a grant-in-aid.

—(Minister for Justice).

Mr. Moore

I earlier spoke about the relationship between drink and crime. If we remember that we spent last year £1.2 million per day on drink and we spent less than half that on housing it shows there is something wrong with our priorities. I do not believe anybody will deny that excessive drinking is a contributory factor in crime. We must bear our share of the blame for some of the crime. We must remember that a large section of the population do not drink alcohol. The excessive drinking, therefore, among a small section of the community must be colossal.

Are we doing enough to prevent the abuse of alcohol? I am not trying to preach on this subject. I am talking about the abuse of excessive drinking. It is a great indictment of us that we spend so much more on drink than on housing when so many people are waiting for proper housing. It is unfair to associate the Minister for Justice with the housing shortage as it is not his job. I believe that if we could change the licensing laws to prevent the abuse of alcohol we would be doing a good job.

We also have to consider how easily wine can be bought by many unfortunate people in this city and throughout the country whom we see sitting on the city streets drinking cheap wine. I believe the situation is getting worse because every day we see more of them. Could the Minister devise some way to tighten up the sale of wine to those people? They can be seen early in the morning and late at night clutching a bottle of cheap wine. Those people probably need treatment. They are really breaking the law. I believe that eventually the Minister will be forced to take action.

I believe it is necessary to take action in relation to the sale of drink in supermarkets. They display the drink very temptingly. It is hard to see, without a change in the law, how the supermarkets can stop selling drink to those people. The checkout girls are so busy that they would not be able to identify whether the people buying the wine are over 18 or under it. Those girls at the cash registers with long queues of customers can do very little. They can only take the money for the drink from those people and let them go on their way. The Minister will eventually be forced to tackle this problem in the interests of the prevention of crime.

Bank robberies in recent years have become a factor of everyday life. The Minister yesterday gave some startling figures in relation to this. I know he is concerned about this because I have been in touch with him about it several times during the year and making suggestions as to how they could be curbed.

Most people say the banks should provide their own security, but I do not agree with that. The banks have a duty to do what they can to prevent robberies and to safeguard their staff and customers. This year several bank customers have been killed, staff injured and money taken. We now have bank managers' families being kidnapped and held hostage while the manager goes with the gangsters to open the bank. I suggested some time ago that bank managers should not be allowed to take the keys of the bank home each night. I suggest the keys might be kept in a garda or army barracks. The garda may not be prepared to take on this onerous job but the keys could be left in the army barracks. In the morning they could be collected by somebody known at the barracks. If we do this I am convinced kidnappings will stop and there will be a reduction in the number of bank robberies.

Post offices and people in their own homes are being robbed. The gardaí are doing their best to cope with this problem, which is not confined to this country; it is worldwide. These gangsters rob banks and then take a holiday in the Middle East while they plan their next robbery.

Private security firms are involved in crime prevention. I am not very happy about these firms because I understand they do not need a licence to set up in business and I do not know if there are any standards laid down to which they must adhere. It could happen that a man would start such a security firm with the intention of carrying out a number of robberies in the future. Therefore, I suggest these firms should be licensed to operate and should conform to certain standards.

Many of these firms are doing a very good job. Such firms have been established in most countries but Ireland is one of the few places where they are not armed. When I was abroad recently I was amazed to see members of private security firms carrying machine guns. That did not make me feel very happy. In America in the local drug store I noticed a private security man on duty carrying a machine gun. We do not want that here.

Our crime preventers are the gardaí backed by the people. We do not want members of private security firms going around carrying loaded machine guns. The Minister should look into the whole question of security firms to see what can be done to improve their services and to ensure that nobody will be able to use a security firm to further his own ends by possibly planning robberies. I realise the men working in these firms are running a risk every time they collect or deliver money. It is in their interests that I ask that we ensure that these firms operate under the highest standards possible and that they must be licensed.

I am tired preaching about vandalism. I do not know if it is on the increase or the decrease. I believe vandals are mentally sick. There must be some little kink which makes a person smash a telephone kiosk. A telephone could be the means of saving a life. Life belts along the rivers are stolen or the ropes are cut. This means that an unfortunate who falls into the river is denied a chance of rescue. Psychiatrists should look into this.

If the garda worked in co-operation with local residents' committees and people interested in preserving their area we would have a very happy organisation. I was at a recent residents' meeting and a garda gave advice on drug addiction—and a very good job he made of it. I do not know if we have a very big drug problem, but the biggest drug I know of is drink. We should encourage people to co-operate with the gardaí because, in the long run, they are the guardians of the public.

In this city there are many young people terrorising old people. Even if the old people know the names of these culprits they are afraid to name them because of possible retaliation. In this city where we have a housing shortage a number of houses had to be closed because they were vandalised by unthinking vicious young people. We might have a special section of the Garda to deal with that type of crime. In some cases the housing authority have to put up wire mesh on windows of the old people's flats so that they will not be robbed. There was one case where these brats stole the keys and charged ransom money for them. These people are anti-social and are much worse than some people convicted for robberies.

In the last ten years there has been a lot of political crime. I do not know how we should tackle this. Public representatives have a duty to ensure that by our every utterance we would not encourage anybody to use violence. People must be educated that we can achieve our aims by peaceful means. At the same time we must bring home to those responsible for a part of our country that any social injustices there must be removed. If in our society we have certain injustices, it is our duty to remove them and to show people that we will not tolerate violent methods. We can, with the brains God gave us, have a better society with social justice by peaceful means.

The sufferings of people over the last ten years have been frightful. The strain on the Garda has been colossal. A number of our gardaí have died as a result of this type of crime. We owe it to them and to the future of the country to take all possible steps against people who use violent means to achieve any aims. There are many degrees of violence. There is institutionalised violence which denies a person their rights, but a person shot dead callously in the street is something which cannot be taken lightly. John Donne said "When any man dies I am diminished, because I am part of mankind". In that he was expressing a feeling that we all share. We back the Garda in their battle against these people. They must be given every means to combat all crime in the best way possible. People must be educated to see that crime does not pay. I do not mean in the ordinary context that they will be punished for it but that it will not pay to hurt a neighbour, friend or relative. Crime must be seen as being abhorrent to us all. We must prevent it, because prevention is better than detection. However, if we cannot prevent it we must have every possible means available to detect the people responsible.

Young people are influenced by many things, particularly films and television. At home if a family are watching television and things become too bad they can switch it off. However, I was at a cinema recently and was appalled at the film being shown to over 18s. Films are made which would corrupt youth and drive them to crime. If they commit crime and are caught they are sent to prison. Should the people who make these films not be sent to prison? Should the people who show them not be admonished in some way? I know we have a censorship board but, while the censor does his best, he can only delete the very worst parts of the film. I do not condemn the youth but rather the people who are making money from these films shown both on television and in the cinema. We must educate the youth to ignore the rubbish shown on the screens. If these people do not have an audience they will stop making that kind of film.

Another matter is that of vice in the city. People generally laugh when one mentions prostitution. The sordid side is that, at a time when we hear so much about women's liberation, we are faced with the situation where we may have the start of a female slave trade. How many of these unfortunate women are there because somebody is making money out of them and terrorising them on to the streets? There is no glamorous side to it. I saw in a paper recently a statement from one of these people that one of their members had been murdered. In my constituency a resident told me that he had to leave his house at night to rescue one of these women who was being strangled by the person with her. It is no joke and there is nothing glamorous about it. I hope the Minister will provide a full Garda patrol in these areas. These unfortunate women—I do not condemn them—may end up strangled in a gutter. This happened not long ago. One was found and I am told there was also a second person. Let us get after the godfathers of prostitution—I am told they are there, although I have no proof of it—and put them where they should be, in prison.

One often reads in the newspapers of a person charged with a crime and then remanded in custody for a long time. If that person is innocent we are doing him a great injustice by allowing him to languish in prison for a long time before trial. I appreciate the difficulty of the courts in this and the difficulty of bail in all cases. I know a case where, if bail had been refused, a terrible tragedy would have been averted. I queried the case and was told that the judge could not refuse to give bail. The person involved was afterwards convicted of a hideous crime. The Minister should examine ways to shorten the remand period for a person before the courts and ways of ensuring that bail is only given in cases where it is fully warranted. We must ensure that no innocent person will suffer either by being refused bail or being incarcerated in a prison for a long time before his trial comes up.

I do not know whether our welfare officer service is up to scratch or not but I deplore seeing a ban-gharda on duty when she could be engaged in the sphere of crimes against women and children. I was one of the people who campaigned for the creation of the force of banghardaí. We had in mind at that time that they would deal with women and children in trouble. I urge the Minister to increase the force of Ban-Ghardaí and put them on this essential work. I know the Minister and the Garda have had a tough year and I hope that when we are discussing the Estimate next year we will have made further strides in the prevention of crime.

The prison system in other countries is causing great concern. It may be that there are so many prisoners. We will also have problems in that respect. A few years ago I visited some of our prisons and found them very unlike hotels. To deprive a man of his liberty by imprisoning him is a harsh measure but some men have to be imprisoned for the good of their fellow men.

I wish the Minister success with the proposed reforms and hope that they will result in a reduced crime rate.

Mr. Hegarty

Our committment to reducing the rate of crime has not been met. In order to ensure that our citizens are free from attack, that their homes and properties are safe, and that our streets are safe, crime must be made unprofitable.

We have heard a great deal today about problems in the city. I come from an isolated rural area and I can assure the House that people in this area live in fear of attacks by gangs who break into homes, sedate the dog, and then proceed to pull the house apart. To combat that type of crime we would need to recruit more men. I believe that the sight of a squad car in rural areas is essential. The closing of the small rural stations has only added to the problem as the gardaí in these areas knew all the locals and where they could find them. The grouping of gardaí in the larger towns is not effective. In view of the increase in crime in rural areas I appeal to the Minister to consider the re-opening of the small rural stations. In my area recently two groups swooped on all the farmhouses and stole everything they could lay their hands on and they are still at large. If the local stations were operating and were provided with squad cars we would be in a better position to combat this type of crime.

I noticed in a recent report that the amount of money taken in armed raids in 1977 had doubled by 1978 to the frightening figure of £2 million. Nineteen hundred homes, businesses and other premises were broken into and burgled in 1978. I shudder to think what the 1979 figures will be like. The impetus established by us in Government has been halted.

I should like to compliment the Garda Síochána on their work. They are an unarmed force who have to deal with brutal criminals. Their hours of work are anti-social and they have to deal with many difficult cases. Regardless of the cost, we should increase the membership of the force so that people can live in peace.

In regard to recruitment, I believe that there is too much emphasis on academic qualifications. The quality of a man is more important that his ability to obtain a leaving certificate. Another aspect of recruitment which should be reconsidered is the condition relating to height. I believe that we could lawfully bend the rule relating to height.

In order to combat armed criminals the Garda should be provided with the best technical aids. I would even suggest that selected members of the force should be trained abroad. We should also provide refresher courses in dealing with armed crime for all members of the force.

The previous speaker referred to people who conspired to commit crime. They are not in the same category as the ordinary offender. I agree with the previous speaker and I would support the Minister in any action which he takes to ensure that people who conspire to commit armed crime are not given bail as further serious crimes are often committed by people who have been allowed out on bail.

The previous speaker referred to latenight drinking. Our licensing laws are controlled by Acts which date back to 1825. The drink industry generates consumer spending of about £1 million per day. The number of special exemptions granted last year was more than 40,000. Many of them may be for genuine dinners and clubs, but most of them are just excuses for late night drinking. There is exploitation of the young in our society because of late night drinking facilities.

For these reasons, including the spread of under age drinking which, as we were told, is very difficult to control in a busy licensed premises, the spread of late night clubs with wine licences, the increase in the number of pubs registered under the 1904 Act, about which many of our district justices have expressed their gravest concern, I would urge the Minister as a matter of urgent public importance to set up a commission to inquire into the whole area of our licensing laws.

I have noted for some time the wonderful work being done in one of our institutions about which I made some inquiries, St. Patrick's Institution. I should like to compliment them on the work being done there for the 16 to 21 year olds. The majority of these are young people very often from broken homes—not necessarily poor homes, because there are broken homes in the very well-off sector as well—and from bad housing conditions and usually they are unemployed. They are material which can be worked on. They are not hardened criminals. They are young offenders. The fact that the unit is comparatively small helps it to be a successful unit. They have wonderful workshops and educational facilities up to the leaving certificate. That is what those people need and that is what they are getting.

When they are let out into society they report back to the social workers who take a serious interest in them. More and more effort should be put into that sort of work. Once they become hardened later in life, there is very little we can do. A lot of work is being done but a lot more could be done. We need more small centres. In Mountjoy, where there are 400 or 500 prisoners, that unit is too large. We should get away from the American type of herding operation where the really hardened prisoner is in with the ordinary person who may have committed a smaller offence. There are the bullies, and so on, as we see on television, although that is probably exaggerated. I see a great case for smaller units, small workshops where there is personal supervision and an intimate knowledge of the prisoner and his problems.

When the time comes for the young person to be released, society has a big part to play in offering him employment. No stigma should be attached to a young man because he has served a short time in prison. Employers should be encouraged to help them in every way possible even to the extent of giving them a small grant to help these people to rehabilitate themselves. We hear of cases where these young people are not accepted in their homes. When that happens, flats or some sort of accommodation should be found for them. We must ensure that they are not thrown back on to the streets and that they are gainfully employed. There is an old saying that the devil tempts the idle hand and the idle mind. If a man is employed, he is less likely to create problems for the State and the Garda.

The clergy, the Legion of Mary, Alcoholics Anonymous, and so on, are doing tremendous work in this area. I should like to see more assistance given to them. In cases like aid for Biafra or Concern, the same few people seem to do whatever has to be done to help their fellow men. I should like to see much more involvement on the part of the community in helping our teenagers who unfortunately find themselves locked up, because locked up they have to be. We must have the rule of law. It is not sufficient to leave everything to the clergy, the Legion of Mary, and other societies. Everybody should be involved and concerned to see that these young people can live a normal life and that the rate of crime is reduced. Crime should be projected by the media as a very serious matter. I am convinced that, were it not for the amount of voluntary effort by the clergy and the various societies, in Dublin especially, the volume of crime would be much greater than it is.

The Minister has an unenviable job in trying to control armed robberies and the general violence which seems to have taken hold of our society. I wish him well. I would support him in any measure he might take to control armed crime. The people who engage in this sort of activity seem very often to go unapprehended. They appear out of the blue, as it were, and terrify anybody they choose to terrify. The lives of the members of our unarmed police force are put at risk daily in their efforts to deal with these people. They are a bunch of people who are a blot on our society and should be ashamed to refer to themselves as Irish men and women. I appeal to them to stop this crime.

The forces of the State are having difficulty in dealing with them but the Minister can rest assured that he will have the full support of this side of the House in any effort aimed at dealing with this problem. These marauders of the night will not be found calling to a house where there are a number of teenage sons, for instance. Instead they go to the homes of widows or of old people who are living alone and terrify them. The amount of damage and destruction they cause to shops and other business premises such as co-operative societies in efforts to lay hands on whatever cash may be available is incredible. What sort of mentality must these people have? I would class them as our public enemy number one.

I congratulate the Garda for the excellent job they are doing. I trust that the recruitment campaign will be continued so that it will be possible to have Garda presence in any place that it is necessary. There have been references today to the vandalism that is so prevalent especially in regard to telephone kiosks and to cars. Recently, I saw a line of between 20 and 30 newish cars that had been damaged by some sort of sharp instrument. Perhaps the damage involved was to the extent of £1,000 or so and it could have been caused within a matter of minutes. In Cobh recently five telephone kiosks were destroyed. I suggest that the community generally are not doing nearly enough in co-operating with the Garda in the prevention and control of such crime. I am a firm believer in the concept of the fear engendered by the peak cap. In most cases the young people who are engaged in acts of wanton destruction are terrified of the Gardaí. Locking a car nowadays is merely a joke. Some time ago I happened to be in the Shelbourne Hotel with a former colleague from the Beat Growers Association. He had parked his car in front of the hotel but when we came out after about an hour-and-a-half, we found that the car radio had been stolen though the bolts that had been removed in the first place had been put back.

The work being done in dealing with juvenile offenders is excellent. These young people should at all times be kept separate from the hardened criminal. Again, I compliment the Garda but we need more members in the force.

Mr. Bermingham

At the outset I should like to thank the Minister in regard to the courtesy extended to me on the various occasions on which I have made representations to him and to wish him well in his fight against crime.

I shall refer first to the Estimate for the Garda but I trust that I will be forgiven if, at times, I combine both Estimates in my remarks. This Estimate is for the purpose primarily of meeting the cost of the new rates of pay for the Garda. As most speakers have remarked, the Garda are doing a fine job. They are deserving of any extra remuneration that we may be able to give them. People in such a trustworthy position as gardaí should be free from the sort of money difficulties that most of us experience. In so far as possible they should be free from financial problems. Consequently, they should be very well paid.

Much of what I have heard today from all sides of the House would seem to be lacking in some respect. I agree that the crime situation is bad but it would not be fair to expect the Minister to make specific promises in regard to solving the problem. All any Minister can do in a situation such as this is to express the hope that the measures being taken will prove successful.

I suspect that the kind of society we have built up—perhaps this is true also of other countries—in terms of differences in the strata of society has contributed to this kind of situation. It would appear that many of those who indulge in crime, whether individually or in gangs, have had a chip on their shoulders from childhood. Consequently, any examination of this whole area of crime must involve an examination into a person's life from long before the time when he was apprehended. We must ask what are we as a society doing to change the kind of environment that would appear to produce a preponderance of criminals.

If we take crime as our criterion it appears that we are developing the kind of society that produces this person with a huge chip on his shoulder. If that is so we have a duty to examine the situation to find out why this is happening and why people in certain areas—and it is not confined to our bigger cities but happens in small rural towns as well—gang up to do things because it gives them a feeling of power. There must be something wrong with the various social areas of education, housing and so on when this kind of thing happens even in small villages.

The Garda Síochána and the leaders in society have not the same contact with or influence over the youth in our society as they had some years ago. I am not blaming anyone for that but despite what the previous speaker said about the squad car it has not helped in rural areas. The previous speaker said the squad car was a deterrent but we need more than a deterrent. A word of advice from a local garda might be better than squad cars flying up and down the road.

Twenty years ago the smaller police stations were run down and depopulated in such a manner that some of them are now a farce. The gardaí in these stations are expected to compile a whole lot of statistics, to act as a labour exchange and so on and some of them are operating with a one man team. If we are going to have police stations at all there should be local stations. Towns should not be serviced by a station 20 miles away which will send squad cars. This will not improve the relationship between the police force and the ordinary individual, particularly the young people.

We need to examine more deeply than can be done under this Estimate the causes in our society that produce the situation I have been talking about. If a person has a chip on his shoulder there must be a reason for it. He might have inherited it from his parents or he might have it as a result of an inferiority complex because of the section of society he comes from. There may be a reason for this chip and we have to remove that reason for grievances aganist society and against the Garda authorities. There must be respect between these people and the Garda. The Garda should have respect for the problems of young people. I have found by and large that young people are very excellent people that one would be proud to associate with. If some of them are going wrong it is not in any bigger proportion than hitherto. Young people seem to have more of a grudge against society than they did formerly. We should be doing more than sending squad cars into their areas to make them afraid of committing crime. If they feel they have a grudge against society they will commit crime. I could go on for a long time on the grudge these people have against society but I will not because I will have many other opportunities in many other areas to talk about that.

Many Garda barracks—and I can give examples in my own constituency—are reduced to one member of staff and some of them close at 12 midnight. One can ring up Carlow Garda station which is 12 or 15 miles away and a squad car is sent. As a result hardened criminals can come from as far away as Dublin in cars stolen at various stages along the way to commit crimes. They know that after 12 midnight, although someone will ring for a squad car, they are safe because the squad car will have to come such a distance that they can carry out their crime and be many miles away before the squad car arrives. Centralising Garda activity is not the way to deal with problems. The gardaí and squad cars should be available on the spot and right through in all these towns to provide the kind of service that is vital and necessary.

The present Minister has been working in the direction of increasing the force just as the previous Minister was. In some of the smaller towns in my area two gardaí are expected to provide a service, to know everything that is going on in the area and to act as an employment exchange and so on when the full complement is four gardaí plus a sergeant. Let us either have police stations in those areas or not. If we are not going to have them let us take the consequences and let us not fool ourselves and the public by saying that we have a Garda service in these small towns when we really have not. Most of these gardaí spend most of their time doing office work which is not really police work at all. It is about time we realised that if we want protection from crime and if we want a police service that will do justice to our country and to our people who need and have a right to protection we must double or triple the number of gardaí we have at present and give them proper equipment. All sides of the House agree that there must be trust between the Garda Síochána and the people. I have the greatest admiration for members of the force. In my constituency a young garda, at great risk to himself, faced a large smuggling gang—not from this part of the country—and tackled them on his own. This was appreciated by everyone in the country. I refer to the drugs operation in Naas.

The Garda Síochána are pilloried by some people. There is an impression in the public mind—I do not know if it is because of newspaper reports or by way of some other medium—that methods that were foreign to the Garda Síochána in past years are being used to extract statements from people. If there was a good public relations job carried out on behalf of the Garda Síochána, if the Garda officers have in the taking of statements, if certain guidelines were laid down that were known to everybody, there would be a much better relationship between the force and the public. The Garda force or the Department of Justice might consider carrying out a public relations job to let the public know about the situation. If there was no doubt in anybody's mind about what was involved there would be no room for allegations that people were kicked and badly treated while in custody. I do not believe that such things happen but immense harm is done when such allegations are made. It is in the interests of the Garda Síochána that the public know the situation.

This Estimate gives increases to members of the force. They should be well paid. Some of the younger gardaí complain that their increase will be a tiny fraction of the average amount being paid to the force. These young officers have commitments and they should not have to suffer financial embarrassment. They cannot carry out their duties adequately if they have financial worries of their own. I have heard that young gardaí coming out of the depot have received only a very small increase and that is not desirable. They are the people who must uphold the laws. They should know that they have the backing of the Minister and all the forces of the State, that they can fearlessly impose the law irrespective of the people who come to their notice. Some members of the public have a chip on their shoulders so far as society and the law are concerned. We must ensure that the law is administered fairly and equitably and we must get that point across to the people to whom I referred in my opening remarks. If we do not do that we are putting a barrier between the various strata in our society. That is bad for the Garda Síochána and for the community in general.

There is a feeling that society is against certain classes of people. I am not saying the people in custody should live in the lap of luxury but they should be looked after in a proper way. Our prisons are old, some of them very much out of date. It is terribly frustrating for anybody committed to prison for any length of time to find themselves so restricted from the point of view of space, facilities and so on. It is impossible for them to feel anything but frustration and they are bound to build up, during their term there, a chip-on-the-shoulder and anti-society attitude. We would be doing a good day's job were we to set about having such people treated decently. If such people have committed serious crimes, I know they must be punished in some way, taken from society, in order to bring home to them that they cannot carry on in that way.

In the case of long-term prisoners, in particular, the parole system could be used to better advantage. When a prisoner is well behaved in prison, if encouraged, afforded some facilities and allowed out over weekends to return to his family it might overcome the possibility of his building up resentment against society during his period of detention. Furthermore, it would lessen the possibility of his being rejected by his family, which happens in many cases, nor would he find it so difficult to get employment on leaving prison. If such prisoners could be given an incentive to further their capabilities during their period of detention, by undergoing training in some trade or other, and being allowed integrate in society periodically, this would be immensely beneficial to them. This is something we should be endeavouring to do. Very often also the relatives of prisoners become anti-society because they discover on visiting the prison that the visiting facilities leave a lot to be desired. The security problem cannot be overlooked, but certainly better facilities could be made available especially with regard to the privacy of such visits.

It would be remiss of me not to mention a famous prison in my constituency—I do not know whether it is a prison or a military camp—I think it was opened as a detention centre, what was known as the Curragh Detention Centre. I have been on its visiting committee for the past few years. It is not a suitable place to have a prison located; the building itself and the overall size of the compound are not what they should be. It was opened, I think, in 1972 in peculiar circumstances as a result of disturbances at Mountjoy Prison where a wing was destroyed and rendered unfit for use for some time. The Curragh Detention Centre was opened during the period of office of a Fianna Fáil Government and indeed it was continued by the Coalition and this Government.

I have made appeals to various Ministers to have this centre closed. I think an undertaking was given that its lifetime would be as short as possible and that, as soon as Mountjoy Prison was restored to normality, it would be closed. I think it was intended to be a very temporary measure. In the beginning there were prisoners there—and I do not want to give them any status—who were considered to be political in one way or another—provisional IRA people and representatives of other organisations who, at that time, broke up Mountjoy to such an extent they had to be transferred to the Curragh. At present there are 25 or perhaps fewer prisoners in the Curragh. I feel they are not the kind of prisoner to whom I have just referred. As far as I can ascertain—and the Minister admitted this here in the House—the people there now are those who have had difficulty in every other prison around the country and are not what we might call political prisoners. These are long-term prisoners, apparently people who have given trouble in other prisons who were all gathered together and dumped down in the Curragh, which was a mistake.

The Minister agreed with me before that he would like to close this centre as soon as possible; I think that was his attitude. I know nothing about Mountjoy Prison and whether or not it has been restored to normal since 1972 but I feel strongly that the Curragh is not a fit place to house such people. I know Army people will do whatever requested by the Government; that is what they are there to do. However, I feel such personnel did not join our Defence Forces to be prison warders. While I know Army people are known not to complain about any duty assigned to them, the very smallness of the area breeds a kind of dissension between the prisoners and the military police there acting as warders. The conditions under which these people have to operate are not those one would expect in a prison. The previous speaker spoke about smaller prisons, yes, smaller prisons, but certainly not what has been used traditionally and known as the glasshouse in the Curragh to house for a very short term people who were in breach of Army regulations or something of that sort.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 20th November 1979.