asked the Minister for Justice if he will make a statement outlining the background and facts relating to recent riots in St. Patrick's Institution, Dublin; the reasons for the riot, the damage caused and the action taken as a result of the riot; if he will make all the necessary details available to members of the public in such cases at the earliest opportunity and if he has satisfied himself that a recurrence of this situation will not take place.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Riots at St. Patrick's Institution (Dublin).
21.
The question refers to recent riots. There was a riot on 10 February last. There had been none before that since 31 October 1978; and that one was the subject of two statements in the House—one on the following day, 1 November, 1978 and the other on 15 November, 1979, which taken together gave as full an account as it was feasible to give.
As regards the riot on 10 February, the facts appear to be as follows: it began at about 11.30 a.m. when the inmates were on outdoor recreation. A number of them suddenly rushed towards a waste disposal bin which contained bricks, stones and rubble from building operations and they began to throw this material at prison staff. Reinforcements were called in and inmates who were not involved in the disturbance were conducted to their cells. All or most of those who were involved then ran to a garage which adjoins the recreation yard. They broke into the garage and proceeded to smash garage equipment and to damage a car which was there for repairs. At about 12.30 p.m. prison officers gained entry to the garage and took those concerned to their cells.
During the riot, ten prison officers received injuries. Three of them required hospital treatment. Fifteen inmates were injured. Seven of them required hospital treatment. Both prison officers and inmattes whose injuries did not require hospital treatment were treated by the medical officer in St. Patrick's.
Thirteen out of the 15 inmates who were injured and who were known to have taken part in the riot were subsequently transferred, on the recommendation of the Visiting Committee, to Mountjoy Prison. The other two happened to be due to appear before a court on unrelated matters and their cases were dealt with by the court accordingly. Those 15 constituted at least the great majority of the group who rioted, if not the entire group. At all events, no others have been identified.
Following the disturbance the Garda Síochána were asked to conduct an investigation. That is still in progress. The function of the Garda in this matter is to collect any evidence that may be available and that might justify the institution of criminal proceedings against anybody. It may be taken that when their investigation is completed they will submit their report to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Parallel with the Garda investigation, which is concerned with, and only with, the question of possible criminal proceedings. I arranged for a full internal investigation to be carried out by an officer of my Department. This investigation also is still in progress.
The question asks for the reasons for the riot. Since it is so difficult for anybody to say, except on the most superficial level, why even a single individual has behaved in a particular way, not to mention a group of individuals, I assume that what the Deputy means to ask is whether there is known to have been any particular factor that, so to speak, sparked it off. The answer is "no—the prison authorities are ont aware of any". There are, of course, factors that obviously come into the picture. Inmates of penal institutions are people who, generally speaking, are less likely to be disposed to confirm to rules and regulations than would a group of similar size chosen at random from among the general public. Moreover, all of them are of course being detained against their will and, for personality or other reasons, some find that more difficult to accept than others. Furthermore, among them there are likely to be some who will want to achieve positions either of leadership or of notoriety by trying to organise activities directed against the authorities in the institution.
Another fact of some relevance is that, while many of our penal institutions compare very favourably with corresponding institutions in very many and probably most other countries—and this is a fact despite all the propaganda we hear to the contrary—St. Patrick's undoubtedly falls short of what is needed, and that is why a new institution is needed and why a site for it has been acquired, as I have already explained on various occasions. I would expect that a new building with better facilities would reduce the tendencies towards riots or other disturbances that show themselves from time to time, but I do not suggest or expect that it would eliminate them.
As regards the suggestion that details of any such riot should be publicised at the earliest opportunity. I could not accept such a proposition without qualification in so far as it speaks of publication at the earliest opportunity. Very often one of the prime objectives of persons who riot in places of detention, and incidentally of outside groups who have been known to encourage them, is to secure publicity for propaganda purposes and to underline the morale of those who have the difficult job of maintaining safe custody and control. The propaganda is on the lines that, if a riot occurs, there must be reasons for it—this of course is vaild—and that those reasons must of necessity have something to do with serious deficiencies in the system, a proposition which is not valid but which, when repeated often enough, may be believed at least by some.
A related objective, at times, is to undermine the running of other places of detention and, if possible, to encourage sympathetic disturbances in them. Inmates of those institutions have access to the news from radio, TV and newspapers, and publicity not only can forment unrest but is often sought for that very purpose. At worst, in the eyes of the people responsible the Minister for Justice and the staff involved in the day-to-day running of the institution will be put on the defensive—we get the usual calls for a public enquiry into the system, and so on as if the system were something secret.
Since this is the reality we have to contend with, the position is that if every time some disturbance were to occur I were committed to issuing an immediate news item about it, I would from a practical point of view be actively encouraging disturbances and playing into the hands of propagandists. On the other hand, there is no question whatsoever of concealing information that a riot has taken place. I could not do that even if I wished to do so, which I do not. Even if information did not otherwise come out, it would be given in the annual report. In practice, however, information about any disturbance invariably reaches the news media in a fairly short time, often within hours and as far as I know always within days, and questions are invariably put by the news media about it. By then there is at least a prospect that information can be given with less damage to the maintenance of good order because by then a calmer atmosphere is likely to be prevailing.
I deliberately use the phrase "less damage" and not "no damage" for the inescapable fact is that any publicity plays into the hands of some of the people concerned, even though from other points of view some publicity is clearly desirable. What I am not willing to encourage or assit is the provision of what I might call instant publicity.
Finally, the question asks if I am satisfied that there will be no recurrence. I am not. I could not possibly guarantee that there will not be future disturbances in St. Patrick's or, for that matter, in other penal institutions. What I can say is that there is always a full review after each disturbance and measures are taken so far as possible to make a recurrence more difficult. However, any such measures must be severely limited by other considerations.
A policy such as is operated here, of humane containment and ready access by those in custody to facilities for recreation, education, welfare and the like involves the acceptance of risks to the maintenance of custody and control. Those risks are accepted in the full knowledge that it is inevitable that some of those in custody will exploit the situation, just as we operate a liberal system of parole in the full knowledge that there will be times when a prisoner will not honour the conditions of his parole. I think it is better to continue this policy than to introduce the sort of regimes that would be necessary if we were to try to keep the risks of abuse to an absolute minimum.
Does the Minister consider it to be a wholesome situation when basic factual information from the Department relating to a disturbance of the magnitude which in this case resulted in 25 people being injured, is concealed, not propagated, circulated or publicised until such time as rumours had got around and then the information had to be elicited from the Department? How does he see that unwholesome situation jelling with what happened in previous incidents when the Minister himself came forward with comprehensive details of what happened within a day or two days of the occurrence?
The Deputy is mistaken. The incident he is talking about, the riot, took place on 31 October 1978 and on the following day I was asked to make a statement in the House. I made a short statement because I did not have the facts. At the beginning of my reply I said that on 15 November, two weeks afterwards, I was in a position to come into the House to give a fuller picture. I did that. The Deputy should appreciate, perhaps more than many, that it is not feasible to make a statement on what happened, how it happened, how things came about, on the day after or two days after. The Deputy used a word, and he withdrew it having used it, the word "conceal". I cannot be accused by anybody in this House of concealing anything as far as prisons are concerned. I think the Deputy will agree that I brought a breath of fresh air into the prison service with my appointment as Minister for Justice.
Will the Minister accept that all I am asking him is not to pretend that he has information which he could not have on the following day, but whether it is reasonable to expect in the public interest, when 25 people are injured and ten have to be taken to hospital after a disturbance, that the public have a right to know that an incident had occurred—that it is the Minister's duty to inform the public at the earliest opportunity so that wrong, disturbing and unhelpful rumours from the point of view of the staff, the inmates and the Department, would not be circulated.
I am not aware that wrong rumours to the discredit of the staff and the inmates appeared in the newspapers.
I am not suggesting that. Why did the Minister not say that an incident had occurred——
It was known publicly that an incident had occurred.
It had leaked out by circuitous means.
If the Deputy is looking for instant statements by me on incidents in prisons I am sorry I will not be able to oblige him.
The public have a right to know.
The public have a right to know and they get to know of things from me far more than was the case in the time of my immediate predecessor.
That is not the answer. Will the Minister act?
The remaining question for which written replies have not been sought will appear on the Order Paper for Tuesday, 15 April 1980.